Musings on Reading

[Krista G]

My highschool daughters, who attend A Beka Academy's homeschool program, were exposed to some of the poetry of Martha Snell Nicholson this year.  They really enjoyed her work and my oldest daughter located a copy of her biography entitled, His Banner Over Me.  It is available from Amazon for $82.00.  We are very thankful that we were able to borrow a copy through our library.  My daughter highly recommended the book, and I am very glad that I had the opportunity to read it.  What a beautiful person Martha was and how sad that she suffered so greatly in her health.  I have not read any of her poetry yet, but I am planning to locate some as soon as I finish this blog post.

There were several things in the book that are worth mentioning.  She comments that she loved to read, yet when the Elsie Dinsmore books were so popular and someone offered to lend them the whole set, her mother looked through them and declined.  She said they were poorly written and she did not want her daughter's literary taste spoiled.  Wow!  That really struck me, since I have read about 6 of the 28 volumes of Elsie Dinsmore and I really enjoyed them.  What standards do we have today for good literature?  Are there any?  It definitely made me think about what we choose to read to our children and allow our children to read,  I quote Martha regarding this experience directly from her book.

"It may be that this incident is the one which impressed upon me the importance of what one takes into the mind.  To this day when I read a book, I think of the indelible imprint it will make on my mind and character."

"The mind of a child is a fertile field.  There is in my heart a deep regret when I compare the literature of those days with the sensational, suggestive stories and articles of the present day.  Why is America so careless of the seeds she plants in comic books, trashy literature, movies, radio and television?  What a crop she reaps today in child delinquency!  Is not the America of today and of the future the result of what we feed into the minds of our children?"

[Mandabplus3]

The indelible imprint it will make on my mind and character.
That's a life changing thought. I already live my life ( and thus that of my children) with this in mind. Especially where TV is concerned as it seems to affect my children more than other mediums. We don't watch anything violent, rude or just plain wrong. They don't watch those kids cartoons based on fighting. Most people ( not all) think I am over protecting them form the realities of life. But all those people will admit that my kids are lovely with a kind heart. 
I do screen books too. I rejected Hannah Montanna ( even though we have the whole set!) and lots of other teenage and pre teen novels. I will let them read an adventure novel with some fights and violence provided it is not the overall theme of the book and the writing itself is quality. For example The Hobbit.
I often find myself reading their bedtime picture books thinking to myself " the author hasn't  quite got the best from this plot, reword this, rhyme here.." so I guess quality writing must be observed to notice when the quality is lacking. I deliberately sours books with a higher level of content, vocabulary and techniques than what my kids could tackle alone. I think it's important to enhance what they can understand. Doing this means it's easy to avoid those books that have questionable content too.
It great to have it brought to my attention that I screen their reading as well as their TV viewing. I hadn't really thought about it that much. I suppose the job is going to get much harder now that one is learning speed reading.   

[Krista G]

Mandabplus3, we can always count on you to answer the posts.   You are so faithful here.  I don't know how you manage that, but you do.  God bless you!

I have not been that particular about my children's reading.  I am very particular about television and movies.  We do not watch tv.  We watch movies on the weekends and we have a Clear Play DVD player that filters out bad language, excessive violence and other questionable material from the movies.  I don't know what I would do without it.  I do find it more difficult to monitor their reading, first of all, because they love to read, and second of all because there are 6 of them!  We have discussed what content is appropriate and they have on many occasions come and told me that they were not going to finish a book because of something or other that they didn't feel comfortable reading about.  I am thankful for that.

The part that is harder to figure out is the god writing part.  We have been reading more classics and my kids' homeschool program focuses a lot on good literature, so they are learning and reading good writing there.  Our neighbor recently gave my 10 year old a book to read, since she loves to read.  My 15 year old looked at the book and stated, "That book is so poorly written."  That is a good sign.  I did order some of the materials that Martha Snell Nicholson read as a young girl to see what they considered to be good reading.  It will be interesting to discover.

Some people might consider us over protective as well, but my children are the most precious things I have.  I make them aware of everything, tell them anything, but do not allow them to experience everything.  I believe they have learned tons from observing how things go for the people in our lives.  We look at situations and discuss whether people made good or bad decisions and how it has impacted their lives.  As you said about your children, mine are so sweet!!  Everyone who knows them wants to keep them.   I was reading something the other day about children and good behavior and someone asked a woman how her children were so well behaved.  She replied, "I expect them to obey."  My thoughts exactly.  I plan to use that line the next time someone comments on how well behaved my children are.

[Kimba15]

I find what you say very interesting. After listening to the four arts of primary language talk by Andrew Pudewa from www.excellenceinwriting whose whole premise of the talk was read read read to your children if you want them to be excellent writers but... NEVER READ A BADLY WRITTEN or a BAD BOOK TO YOUR CHILDREN. He said that poorly written books lead to bad writing and also a disinterest in reading. I found that so interesting. I have found that I am screening books more and more. Do I screen content at this point in time I do as they get older and they understand more and more between what is real and what is not than I think I will screen less.

I don'tt really agree with books on violence but some books can then open up the discussion to what is right and wrong? If you were in that situation would you behave that way and so on? A lot of science fiction does have fighting and violence in it but if my child loved that genre and my child was reading and enjoying it and providing the book was well written I 'may' let it go.  Another fantastic book which has a lot of violence is Gone with the Wind and War and peace both books are excellent but have violence in them but it was based around something that actually happened in history but the books are very well written and alos open to discussion.

It is hard you now have children in high school and the older they are the more and more they will choose their own content to read. I think if you keep a number of well written classic books around your house or to study and constantly push them to read books above their level than you will have children with beautiful imprints in their minds,

[JainaRei]

I have a story to offer to provide you with another reason for offering only well written books to your own kids. When bank tellers are learning the job they are never shown forged currency or given them to feel. They only handle real money and are told what makes up a genuine note, they get used to what is genuine. So as soon as they are handed a forged note by a customer they can tell just by feel that it isn't genuine.

I for one know my own writing style was influenced by the books I read as a child. I read the Chronicles of Narnia from the age of ten and it was from then on that my own writing improved. C.S. Lewis was a professor in Literature and so was J.R.R. Tolkin. I believe that all the reading I did helped me to become a good communicator through the written word.

[Mandabplus3]

Yes I am a complete chatterbox, both on this forum and in real life. Feel free to tell me to zip it if I talk too much I actually don't watch TV, I find it boring so I sit with my hubby while he watches and read on the iPad. I find as much interesting conversation on this forum as I do from my books this place makes me think...I like that!  I also have 5 hours a week waiting at Gymnastics as it's just too far to bother doing a drop off and heading home, I stay and watch. I can do a lot of talking in 5 hours  
So I would love to hear what you think about those recommend books when they turn up. It'll be interesting to see if you and your girls can spot the quality writing.
Kimba I think I will check out that excellence in writing link for today's gym wait NEVER read a bad book will be hard. Although I have managed so far...I guess it's  one of the advantages of having excellent readers at a younger age is it's easier to skip that crappy pre-teen fiction that litters the shelves. Our kids will be past it before it is relevant to them.
As i enjoy  a good fantasy series or science fiction book, I won't disallow them entirely. The problem with the violence in them is that by the time our kids are reading them ( let's say from age 8 and up mostly) they are reading them to themselves at a very impressionable age. They are perhaps unlikely to to come and discuss it with us so we need to be keeping an eye on it all. I figure if the violence isn't the main point of the story and the story has merit and technique then I am OK with it. To be honest I am unlikely to ever OK a war based book. My kids just don't need that, IMHO. I would allow a book showing the effects of war perhaps...on the ones left at home or the impact on society. If it was too emotional and I still want them to know it I would choose it for a read aloud. ( and filter as I read!)
krista I didn't even know you could get a safe play DVD! Wow, I will probably want one of those soon enough! I am sure it will annoy all of my children as teenagers when their friends bring over a movie!  

[Korrale4kq]

I think that kids can learn just as much from a badly written book as they can from a well written one.
I do like to screen James' books. Granted I am doing all the reading, but if I come across something that is junk I just put it in a donate box. Eventually we will get to a point where he will be deciding his books. As long as I consider the material appropriate I will let him read it. But we will certainly have open discussion about it. And if I think it is a poor ply written piece of fluff, I would open a discussion about that. And he can argue with me. Frankly what is well written and what is not, is mostly opinion. Unless it is so poor that it lacks plot and is littered with grammatical errors. In that case I might just have to make James fix them. Lol.

Manda, I too feel the need to replace poorly chosen words. Especially when the rhythm is broken when reading aloud.

[Krista G]

Well, Mandab, that explains how you find the time.  I too hate television.  We actually quit watching tv years ago and I have not missed it.  There are far too many books to be read to waste time watching tv.  I find reading far more satisfying.  Your contributions here are definitely appreciated.  There are certain steadies you can count on to comment on posts and you are definitely one of the top 3!!

I have a homeschool friend who saw Andrew Pudewa speak and she regarded it highly.  I have not checked him out yet, so thanks for the link.

Right now I am reading my bottom 3 kids Pinocchio.    I started this a year or so ago and they hated it and so we stopped, but we are pushing along amidst there complaining.  I ask them why they don't like the book and I believe it has more to do with them being annoyed at Pinocchio's horrid behavior than the way the book is written.  It has opened up lots of opportunities to speak and discuss bad behavior and why we should behave and obey our parents.  The funny thing is that as much as two of them are complaining they picked up the book on their own and read almost the whole thing.  Go figure.

I love reading.  It can take you anywhere.  There are no restrictions to the time or place, whether real or imaginary.  As Emily Dickinson said, "There is no frigate like a book to take you lands away."  But the idea of just reading anything for the sake of reading doesn't seem right either.  I was chatting with my 7 year old neighbor the other day.  He likes to read, so I was asking him what he likes and making recommendations to him.  We had just finished reading The Odyssey by Mary Pope Osbourne, so I was highly recommending it to him.  I had never heard of the books he likes and I felt sad that he doesn't have anyone really guiding his reading.  Just as I wouldn't let my kids eat sugary cereal because it provides little nourishment for their bodies, neither do I want them reading books that provide no stimulation and are just fluff.  How I wish someone had directed me when I was a child.

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