Children's Books.

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Little Blue Fox.

| 4,256 posts


18th Mar 2008 at 12:41 pm

Little Blue Fox. - Hope is important.

Hope is important.

 
Hi. Please does anyone read any childrens' books at-all? Lots of children's books are really deep and dark and complicated, I think, but lots of people do not like them so much because they are children's books.
"Peter Pan and Wendy" and "Tom's Midnight Garden" are really terrible and tragic, and "The Wind in the Willows" is lots of ideas about changes and scared everything will be really horrible and different. Also, "The Waterbabies" and The Chronicles Of Narnia are allegory stories, and all the His Dark Materials are lots deeper and smarter than lots of adult books, I think.

Also, what books did you really like when you were really little?


It hurts too much not to try.
I will see you in another life when we are both cats.
Quod perditum est, in venietur.*Facebook.

Elusive Moose

| 8,546 posts


18th Mar 2008 at 1:21 pm

Elusive Moose - Get your Antlers on

Get your Antlers on

 
I'm doing a children's lit module at the moment and stuff like that is basically the whole theme of the course. Even picture books and fairy tales are full of connotations and ideas that looking back on are pretty blunt and not exactly nice. Admittedly fairy tales weren't originally intended just for children (hence why the first Little Red Riding Hood is horrific!) but still... The thing is though, to read all that stuff into the book, you have to know and have cultural knowledge of the things the author's talking about. So children don't get fed all these dark, scary, horrible ideas- they're just fantasy stories. The ideas are there for an older reader/adult. But essentially, yeah, children's books are really much more complex than you might think- and possibly a lot moreso than a lot of adult books, as you've said.

I think I've just repeated what you've said... Oh well...

I really liked Enid Blyton and Roald Dhal when I was little. And The Very Hungry Catterpillar before that (to the extent that, apparently, when the parents tried to skip a page or miss words out so they could get us to bed quicker, I knew it so well that I knew they'd done it..!)

Anyone else remember the Oxford Reading Tree... Biff, Chip and Kipper on their magical adventures...
"You can't roast infants. You just don't get away with it."- a life lesson for us all.


Wife of  Phil the Lawful Hippo. Imagine the children!

The Disneyafied Adventures of Me

learrggh

| 5,670 posts


21st Mar 2008 at 5:07 am

learrggh -

 
Quote: illusiveshadow


Anyone else remember the Oxford Reading Tree... Biff, Chip and Kipper on their magical adventures...


God how I hated those books.

the doc

| 23,161 posts


21st Mar 2008 at 9:51 am

the doc -

 
I kinda missed out on a lot of kids books cos I was reading really mad, adult stuff by the time I was nine or ten......I remember really enjoying Children of Winter by Berlie Doherty though, that was an excellent story.

Freshly Squeezed Cynic

| 6,189 posts


21st Mar 2008 at 11:42 am

Freshly Squeezed Cynic - apparently the big pink bastard is me

apparently the big pink bastard is me

 
Does Watership Down count? I loved that book when I was a kid, although it's pretty heavy. Following on from that, I quite like the Artemis Fowl books by Eoin Colfer.
Filled with existential dread and toast.

Albert Johanneson

| 14,477 posts


21st Mar 2008 at 12:24 pm

Albert Johanneson - Outside-left

Outside-left

 
The Wind In The Willows is one of my favourite childhood books.
http://commodoredan.tumblr.com

Mancomb Seepgood

| 3,455 posts


21st Mar 2008 at 5:38 pm

Mancomb Seepgood - Grog me.

Grog me.

 
The Narnia collection was incredible. Luckily I was too young to understand the symbolism (oh how I hate symbolism) so just enjoyed the magical adventure. May give them all a read again when I get home.
If I could get an orange that was as low-maintenance as an apple, I'd be a happy man

Albert Johanneson

| 14,477 posts


21st Mar 2008 at 7:07 pm

Albert Johanneson - Outside-left

Outside-left

 
Quote: mancombseepgood
The Narnia collection was incredible. Luckily I was too young to understand the symbolism (oh how I hate symbolism) so just enjoyed the magical adventure. May give them all a read again when I get home.

That's the key. Over-analysis has killed everything from The Beatles to Catcher in the Rye to Nirvana to political debate.
http://commodoredan.tumblr.com

Animal

| 32,547 posts


21st Mar 2008 at 9:04 pm

Animal -

 
Quote: Squirrell_of_Doom
Quote: mancombseepgood
The Narnia collection was incredible.  Luckily I was too young to understand the symbolism (oh how I hate symbolism) so just enjoyed the magical adventure.  May give them all a read again when I get home.

That's the key. Over-analysis has killed everything from The Beatles to Catcher in the Rye to Nirvana to political debate.

My English teache rhated me, I used to sit and ask how they decided this, when she was going on about symbolism.. I used to just sit and ask why not just write a book for the sake of telling a story, f*ck art, f*ck meaning, f*ck message. Just a plain and simple story. Besides, how do we know if we have misread meaning into things when the author is no longer available to ask. Or if the auhers diaries tell us little?

Isn't it a tad arrogant to assume their is any higher meaning, just because smoeone chooses to see it?

Off that subject.

Childrens books, I'll always love the Narnia Chronicles, The Wind in the WIllows, some of Enid Blytons stuff is wonderful also, just for how innocent it all is. The Redwall Saga and also The Deptfod Mice/Cats trilogies.. Which for kids books are pretty horrifying at times.

I'm also a massive fan of things like The Brother Grimm - the origional works, not the stuff that adults re-wrote for kids to dumb it down. Also, Roald Dahl I love how dark these are, while stll being kids stories.
http://www.dasburros.com

The world isn't run by weapons anymore, or energy, or money. It's run by little rabbits and zeroes, little bits of data. It's all just electrons.

Cycling Antics

Elusive Moose

| 8,546 posts


22nd Mar 2008 at 9:03 am

Elusive Moose - Get your Antlers on

Get your Antlers on

 
Quote: girlpants
Quote: Squirrell_of_Doom
Quote: mancombseepgood
The Narnia collection was incredible. Luckily I was too young to understand the symbolism (oh how I hate symbolism) so just enjoyed the magical adventure. May give them all a read again when I get home.

That's the key. Over-analysis has killed everything from The Beatles to Catcher in the Rye to Nirvana to political debate.

My English teache rhated me, I used to sit and ask how they decided this, when she was going on about symbolism.. I used to just sit and ask why not just write a book for the sake of telling a story, f*ck art, f*ck meaning, f*ck message. Just a plain and simple story. Besides, how do we know if we have misread meaning into things when the author is no longer available to ask. Or if the auhers diaries tell us little?

Isn't it a tad arrogant to assume their is any higher meaning, just because smoeone chooses to see it?

Off that subject.

Childrens books, I'll always love the Narnia Chronicles, The Wind in the WIllows, some of Enid Blytons stuff is wonderful also, just for how innocent it all is. The Redwall Saga and also The Deptfod Mice/Cats trilogies.. Which for kids books are pretty horrifying at times.

I'm also a massive fan of things like The Brother Grimm - the origional works, not the stuff that adults re-wrote for kids to dumb it down. Also, Roald Dahl I love how dark these are, while stll being kids stories.


A few of my lecturers have now taken to saying that we shouldn't write about 'the author' and their intentions in our essays because there is no way to know whether they meant to do this, that and the other. (Case and point being our creative writing seminars where people will be like 'so this bit here... did you want it to mean this?' and most of the time it's been a happy accident. Admittedly we're not professional authors but still...). However, what they do say is that by writing a book (or anything for that matter), the author has opened it to interpretation. Therefore whatever it means to you (within reason) is a valid interpretation. Though obviously there are some cases when the authors are so overt with symbolism/ have reoccurant symbolism throughout their work that it would be hard to argue that there wasn't some reasoning/logic behind it. But yeah, there are also some occasions when the lecturers who insist there's meaning behind everything make me sit there and think that they can take things way too far.

Also, incidentally, The Brothers Grimm did actually 'dumb down' (I can't think of a better phrase) a lot of fairy stories. They originated from medieval times and were aimed at an adult and child audience, so the content was darker than even the Grimm versions. Apparently. Not sure where you'd be able to find 'original' transcripts though...

Edited by Elusive Moose Mar 2008
"You can't roast infants. You just don't get away with it."- a life lesson for us all.


Wife of  Phil the Lawful Hippo. Imagine the children!

The Disneyafied Adventures of Me

Animal

| 32,547 posts


22nd Mar 2008 at 11:33 am

Animal -

 
Quote: illusiveshadow

Also, incidentally, The Brothers Grimm did actually 'dumb down' (I can't think of a better phrase) a lot of fairy stories. They originated from medieval times and were aimed at an adult and child audience, so the content was darker than even the Grimm versions. Apparently. Not sure where you'd be able to find 'original' transcripts though...

This I did not know.

Now, if I could only find the originals.
http://www.dasburros.com

The world isn't run by weapons anymore, or energy, or money. It's run by little rabbits and zeroes, little bits of data. It's all just electrons.

Cycling Antics

Tobias Fünke

| 4,730 posts


22nd Mar 2008 at 5:02 pm

Tobias Fünke - I blue myself.

I blue myself.

 
Garth Nix's books. I really liked Sabriel and Lirael but had to wait for ages for Abhorsen to come out, so I read the Keys to the Kingdom series. There's two more to go and yes, I'm going to finish them. They're good stories.
I also really liked/ like Diana Wynne Jones' books.

Also, f*ck symbolism. Case study: 'Twas a cold, dull poetry day somewhere in a grim pit in the middle of Leeds. Simon Armitage was reading aloud a poem about when he was a teen and got his ear pierced. A teacher stands up: "Ah, I see. This poem is symbolic of teenage rebellion against society and how you felt oppressed at such a young age, etc and lots more boring symbolic stuff."
"NO!" Cries Armitage, "it is about getting my ear pierced."

An apple is an apple, it is not necessarly sinful, just like stories can simply be stories. I hate English Literature (the subject) as a lot of it seems to be pretentious connotations taken as fact when really they are someone's interpretations and not necessarily anything like what the author intended and they totally wreck the literature studied*.




*Particularly when in school and you had to read the damn books around the class and it took so long so that by the time you got to read aloud, you'd already read the entire book through at least 3 times and were thoroughly sick of Z for Zacharia or Flour Babies.
Analrapist.

Roxannie

| 12,431 posts


22nd Mar 2008 at 5:18 pm

Roxannie -

 
[http://www.libsci.sc.edu/miller/caterpillar.gif] <3

Mancomb Seepgood

| 3,455 posts


22nd Mar 2008 at 5:50 pm

Mancomb Seepgood - Grog me.

Grog me.

 
[http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e239/AIKozlov/books/pic23216.jpg]

[http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e239/AIKozlov/books/pic23271.jpg]

[http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e239/AIKozlov/books/pic04565.jpg]
If I could get an orange that was as low-maintenance as an apple, I'd be a happy man

the doc

| 23,161 posts


23rd Mar 2008 at 11:08 am

the doc -

 
With reference to symbolism, it's always interesting from a writer's point of view. It's fascinating when I give people things I've written to see what they read into it and to correlate it with what I actually meant (I posted a poem on a forum once and some guy sent me a message saying he loved the way it's all about giving yourself to good and stuff like that, and the poem's actually about tripping on the moors), although it has to be said I don't go in for too much symbolism in my own work - not my style, as a rule. It is, however, very annoying when I spend ages putting something in, only for everyone to miss it completely.

In conclusion, CS Lewis is dire. I never liked that stuff, symbolism or not. Steven King was my favourite writer by the time I left primary school. I did like those Fighting Fantasy gamebooks though.

Elusive Moose

| 8,546 posts


23rd Mar 2008 at 5:24 pm

Elusive Moose - Get your Antlers on

Get your Antlers on

 
The symbolism thing is why I like Beckett's way of looking at things (whether I like his work or not is another matter...). He says it's about what you want it to be about. What you get from it is right. I'm sure there are other examples of plays like that as well (Pinter's Landscape springs to mind). Everyone's going to have a personal interpretation of something that's been written regardless of author intention. It's just when people start to try forcing that meaning onto you that it gets frustrating. Or when people are like 'NO IT IS DEFINITLY NOT ABOUT THAT' (like Gillian somethingorother getting annoyed when a teacher asked her if a poem could be related to post-natal depression at a conference which was what EVERYONE in the class had felt it was about and she was like NO NO WAY IS IT ABOUT THAT. SHUT UP. YOU CAN'T READ THAT INTO IT. If you're going to write, I think you have to accept that people will read stuff into it... She was cack anyway...)

Think that's something more easily applicable to poems and plays (especially the latter as so many are so political) than children's novels, though.

Oh yeah, another awesome kid's author. Jacqueline Wilson. I loved The Illustrated Mum and the Girls in Love books until the tv adaptation destroyed them. Also, Stargirl.

Edited by Elusive Moose Mar 2008
"You can't roast infants. You just don't get away with it."- a life lesson for us all.


Wife of  Phil the Lawful Hippo. Imagine the children!

The Disneyafied Adventures of Me

the doc

| 23,161 posts


23rd Mar 2008 at 8:11 pm

the doc -

 
Quote:
Beckett's way of looking at things

Samuel Beckett was wonderful ("We give birth astride the grave, the light flickers an instant - then dies.........." That play is ace. I'm a huge fan o Krapp's Last Tape as well, but I genuinely love all of them. Some of his prose is excellent too).

I like symbolism in other people's work (certain people anyway), it's just not something I use a lot myself, by and large. It's easy to be OTT in analysis though - when I was in the sixth form I wrote a piece saying that Teletubbies was an Orwellian allegory about Nazi Germany...........

Freshly Squeezed Cynic

| 6,189 posts


25th Mar 2008 at 10:33 am

Freshly Squeezed Cynic - apparently the big pink bastard is me

apparently the big pink bastard is me

 
Quote: the_doc
I wrote a piece saying that Teletubbies was an Orwellian allegory about Nazi Germany...........


Please, raise any children I may steal.
Filled with existential dread and toast.

Little Blue Fox.

| 4,256 posts


25th Mar 2008 at 12:02 pm

Little Blue Fox. - Hope is important.

Hope is important.

 
Quote: illusiveshadow
I'm doing a children's lit module at the moment and stuff like that is basically the whole theme of the course. Even picture books and fairy tales are full of connotations and ideas that looking back on are pretty blunt and not exactly nice. Admittedly fairy tales weren't originally intended just for children (hence why the first Little Red Riding Hood is horrific!) but still... The thing is though, to read all that stuff into the book, you have to know and have cultural knowledge of the things the author's talking about. So children don't get fed all these dark, scary, horrible ideas- they're just fantasy stories. The ideas are there for an older reader/adult. But essentially, yeah, children's books are really much more complex than you might think- and possibly a lot moreso than a lot of adult books, as you've said.


Oh my goodness - I studied children's literature too - it was my bestest English module, I think. - We studied, like, Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan And Wendy, and also Harry Potter and Roald Dahl books too. All the Fairy Tales are really terrible and bloody - they are not children's stories so much, I think.
Lots of childrens' books are really tragic and terrible and sad.

I really liked Roald Dahl books when I was really young - my first book ever was "George's Marvellous Medicine". They are really goofy and funny and yucky mixed together, I think. I really liked Famous Five books and Asterix books too, but I did not like Tin Tin books at-all.
I really liked Point Horror books, but they were not so scary, I think, and also books about dinosaurs and monsters and ghosts too. Oh, I really liked Zodiac Horror (I think :-[) books too.

Quote: curly_cow
My current favourite children's author is Lauren Child with the 'Clarice Bean' books. Also Angie Sage's 'Septimus Heap' books. But at the moment i'm having to supplement my reading with war poetry, plays etc, so it's time to finish 'Goodbye to All That'.


Oh - I really like Clarice Bean books too - they are exceptionarily funny and sweet, I think! I really like Harry Potter and Lemony Snickett and Roald Dahl books too. Also, my friend likes Artemus Fowl books, but I have not read any of them at-all, yet. :-[

It hurts too much not to try.
I will see you in another life when we are both cats.
Quod perditum est, in venietur.*Facebook.

Tobias Fünke

| 4,730 posts


25th Mar 2008 at 12:23 pm

Tobias Fünke - I blue myself.

I blue myself.

 
I absolutely detested Point Horror (and Goosebumps too). Not only were they so predictably written, they were badly written, had too many characters and because they were so dire, you could only read them once as they were utterly rememberable.

They also seemed to be ridiculously formulaic. And never, ever did the heroine not get the guy or the bad guy win.
Analrapist.

Little Blue Fox.

| 4,256 posts


25th Mar 2008 at 12:29 pm

Little Blue Fox. - Hope is important.

Hope is important.

 
Quote: Look_Dad_No_Tunes
I absolutely detested Point Horror (and Goosebumps too). Not only were they so predictably written, they were badly written, had too many characters and because they were so dire, you could only read them once as they were utterly rememberable.

They also seemed to be ridiculously formulaic. And never, ever did the heroine not get the guy or the bad guy win.


Yes. :-[
One of them was really amazing, but I cannot remember what it was called. - It was a murder story in the woods and it was first person narrative, but the murderer was the narrator, but it tell not say until really near the end. It was really smart and surprising, I think.

:-[
It hurts too much not to try.
I will see you in another life when we are both cats.
Quod perditum est, in venietur.*Facebook.

Carpet Remnant

| 11,715 posts


25th Mar 2008 at 1:31 pm

Carpet Remnant -

 
Quote: Look_Dad_No_Tunes
I absolutely detested Point Horror (and Goosebumps too). Not only were they so predictably written, they were badly written, had too many characters and because they were so dire, you could only read them once as they were utterly rememberable.

They also seemed to be ridiculously formulaic. And never, ever did the heroine not get the guy or the bad guy win.

I loved the goosebumps books, for those exact reasons.

the doc

| 23,161 posts


25th Mar 2008 at 8:10 pm

the doc -

 
Quote: fsc
Quote: the_doc
I wrote a piece saying that Teletubbies was an Orwellian allegory about Nazi Germany...........


Please, raise any children I may steal.

If I can dig it out I'll email it to you if you like, it was pretty funny as I remember it......

TinyShine

| 2,144 posts


26th Mar 2008 at 8:22 pm

TinyShine -

 
I used to love Enid Blyton books. The wishing chair, Noddy, The famous five, Malory towers.... I was always engrossed in those books as a child.

I also liked the Chronicles of Narnia (despite learning the symbolism :p ) and I read alot of books by Anne Fine- I remember 'A Pack of Liars' and 'Step by wicked step' being particularly entertaining.

I also used to read one of the Babysitters Club books at least once a week :-[ ....Those and Sweet Valley Twins

Sarah xx

Puffalump

| 22,943 posts


26th Mar 2008 at 8:34 pm

Puffalump - Because cake is happiness

Because cake is happiness

 
Judy Blume books were my favourites. Along with The Secret Seven (I even had a puzzle of it...no no I didn't do that the other month...honest) and other short stories collections by Enid Blyton. My Mum frequently accuses me of "living in an Enid Blyton world" where everything is perfect :-[
Wife of the lovely Alice

Turtle

| 3,404 posts


26th Mar 2008 at 9:03 pm

 
Caroline B Cooney for the genius that is Family Reunion. I still read that now because it was touching and witty portrayal of the effect of divorce on children.
Roald Dahl was a genius and I adore most of his books (i'm not so fond of danny, the boy champion). The story of Henry Sugar scared the crap out of me as a kid.
I also adored Charles D*ckens as a kid. I loved Great Expectations and used to carry around my big hardback copy around everywhere with me. I was a strange child.
I also liked the Sweet Valley High books and Babysitters club.

The children's books I've read recently like Lemony Snicket and Artemis Fowl have been really good too.

Dissimulation

| 5,671 posts


27th Mar 2008 at 2:55 pm

Dissimulation -

 
Lewis was an occultist who's stories were packed full of esoteric symbolism. In fact, if you read The Chronicles of Narnia backwards, you're a f*cking idiot.

Puffalump

| 22,943 posts


27th Mar 2008 at 3:04 pm

Puffalump - Because cake is happiness

Because cake is happiness

 
Quote: Citizen_Twiggy
Caroline B Cooney for the genius that is Family Reunion. I still read that now because it was touching and witty portrayal of the effect of divorce on children.


Oh oh oh oh! Did she write The Face on the Milk Carton? I ADORED that book.
Wife of the lovely Alice

Freshly Squeezed Cynic

| 6,189 posts


30th Mar 2008 at 4:49 pm

Freshly Squeezed Cynic - apparently the big pink bastard is me

apparently the big pink bastard is me

 
Quote: curly_cow

Also there used to be this poet who used to make nonsense rhyme. I forgot his name but the poem went soemthing like 'On the ning nang nong all the cows go pong and the monkeys all say boo...?'


Not just a poet, but all round decent bloke, Goon, and Irishman, Spike Milligan.
Filled with existential dread and toast.


 
 
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