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As many kids books where they turn out to be a secret superhero/wizard/prince etc, it's basically a power fantasy. And Rowling's power fantasy is to find out you are rich, have important (though dead) parents, go to the English boarding school for the elite in a world where the English domination of the world is unquestioned, where Europe is divided in France and German-Nordic-Slavic whatever, the rest of the world is good for exotic characters and looting, and all you need to learn about at school is ordering the world around. Basically, it's being a boarding school Tory but with magic. That is what I meant by shoddy world building.
So I am not surprised that she lets out her inner Tory, now that she is actually rich.
But as kids books go, they are pretty good in what kids care about. I have also read them the Christian Indoctrination books known as the Narnia series. That didn't work on me, so I figure kids care about the story and perhaps a bit about the characters but not really about the world building.
I've always been amazed how few people see the political subtext, and think HP is about magic, or the occult, or something.
That subtext has all the subtlety of a car alarm going off at 3am right next to your head.
(Oh dear, I just learned they did a film version of Wrinkle. Will consult Younger Daughter as to whether we should see it. Could it be worse than Golden Compass?) It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II
A Wrinkle in Time. She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre
Compass was a bad film in that they "did the book" to within an inch of its life, and was so superficial that the only character with any emotional depth was the CGI polar bear.
Wrinkle is a whole nother dimension of bad, it would seem (appropriately) - they seem to have lost the plot entirely. It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II
Also I was intrigued by what I perceived as hints at deeper layers. Reading them to my kids I realise that it is simply Lewis borrowing from different mythologies (and not consistently either), with a wink and a nod for the adults. So I wasn't wrong, it was deeper layers, it is just layers of mythology older and outside Christianity.
I also usually always finish books, but I do remember trying to read The Three Musketeers in middle school. The librarian did warn me that it could be to advanced, but than again it was people fighting with swords on the cover. Don't think I got through the first page, despite several attempts. First book I returned without having read, strange experience. I have doubled back and read it later, but at the time it was very confusing.
Later on, I've read them a lot of Hans Christian Andersen and other fairy tales, often in older, slightly archaic translations, because it was good to get them to fall asleep.
Now that they can read a bit themselves, they have a ton of opinions about what they should read, and my philosophy is mainly to encourage reading. There seems to be lots and lots of new children's books coming out, and I think most of what they read is pretty recently written by Swedish authors. Handbok för superhjältar is such a smash hit that I wouldn't be surprised if it's translated soon, though. Young girl finds a Handbook for Superheroes on a dusty shelf in a library or an old bookstore and through the powers of reading and training, evolves super powers of her own. And then she fights crime and bullying. Cool illustrations and easy text, so good for new readers (if and when they are translated into English).
As to what effect books has on impressionable young minds, I'm not sure. They do have effect, but when I go back and re-read scifi I read as a teen, half the story isn't there. Instead of the rich stories and interesting characters I now find flat stories and cardboard characters. But that means that the story as I read it, and the story that impressed me, was largely constructed in my own imagination.
Then again I wouldn't say the content doesn't matter. The first real book I read was "Small is Beautiful". I think I read that one half a dozen times before reading anything else. It is the story about a small dragon that lives with the lizards, but wants to be big. It doesn't listen when the lizards tells him that "Small is beautiful, lagom is best". So it hunts more and more, and gets other animals to hunt for it, for a share of the meat. Eventually it starts growing more heads, I in particular remember the smooth talking head and the fire breathing head. It becomes so large that it dominated the whole forest and the wolf pack decides it needs to be the avant garde of the animals and attack it. Their attack on the dragon fails though, and the dragon grows larger and larger until it poops so much that it's destroying the forest itself. In the end all the animals unite, from the smallest lizard to the largest bear and only then can they overthrow the industrial capitalistic system, I mean the dragon, and a new era can start in the forest. Though in the final picture a dragon egg is resting among the lizard eggs, but perhaps this time the dragon will listen to the lizards?
Given that I have not read it since, it might not have been as obvious eco anarchistic propaganda as I remember it. Though with that title, it probably was. And maybe it was that I was attracted to the content based on already forming values? Though again, maybe it did have that strong an effect on me. In which case, I really should track down a copy and read it to the kids, just to make sure.
The first real book I read was "Small is Beautiful".
I thought you were talking about the book by E.F. Schumacher... Made a big impression on me. For adolescents :) It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II
The children's book Liten är fin, which translates literally to Small is beautiful, is written five years later. Given title and content, I think the inspiration is pretty clear.
Banal, but effective : Dr Seuss. Brainwashed generations of children into political correctness, right under their unsuspecting parents' noses. ABC and Cat in the Hat, are the entry level ones.
Maurice Sendak : Darker undertones, more moving. The Night Kitchen, Where the Wild things are. It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II
Basically, it's being a boarding school Tory but with magic
For LOTR, read "loyal English yeoman" for "boarding school Tory". I used to be afew. I'm still not many.
But I would go for TH White any day.
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