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Author
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Topic: Salutin: Three Wishes, a book for all ages
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skdadl
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 478
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posted 24 March 2006 02:16 PM
[Note to Michelle: I hope you haven't already put this somewhere else.]This is an excellent column, I thought, especially in its emphasis on the ways that children struggle to think about experience as it is thrust upon them, and the way in which good books help us to learn, as Salutin says in his conclusion, how to think about the world, not necessarily what to think. Many adults appear not to know or not to want to know just how much young children - and we're talking here about kids in elementary school - are taking in of the real world about them and how disturbing they may find it already without some honest guidance from books like Three Wishes. I thought that Salutin's examples of kids' desire to know - not to mention the tougher examples of kids who are living with real danger - were excellent.
From: gone | Registered: May 2001
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fern hill
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3582
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posted 24 March 2006 02:32 PM
About adults not understanding what children are taking in. . .A few years ago I was talking to my mother, now in her 70s. She was absolutely stunned by my tales of how terrified I was during the Cold War, in particular the Cuban Missile Crisis.I was born in the US and lived there until I was seven. My school bus's route was past a huge fenced-in area guarded by soldiers. I didn't know what it was then, but I knew it had something to do with what I was scared of. (It was a field of missile silos.) Twice a day I passed it. At night, I hated it when mum would play records instead of the radio or telly. How would we know when it had started? To this day, there are certain tunes (Errol Garner playing Misty is one) that flip me back 40 years .
I never let on. And didn't think to tell her for decades.
From: away | Registered: Jan 2003
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obscurantist
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 8238
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posted 24 March 2006 03:00 PM
Here's a link to the thread from earlier this month about the book (it wasn't on exactly the same topic, as it was concerned more with school boards placing age restrictions on reading it). link [ 24 March 2006: Message edited by: Yossarian ]
From: an unweeded garden | Registered: Feb 2005
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skdadl
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 478
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posted 24 March 2006 05:05 PM
quote:
Originally posted by Yossarian:
Here's a link to the thread from earlier this month about the book (it wasn't on exactly the same topic, as it was concerned more with school boards placing age restrictions on reading it). link
Yossarian, I think that Salutin was indeed writing to that same topic as well, although I think above all he wanted to give both the book and the children a chance to speak for themselves. Notice the contradiction, though, in the two positions of the CJC that Salutin highlights. Their opening gambit is the claim that they are concerned only with what is "age-appropriate," which was one of the arguments pursued by some of the posters to the earlier babble thread. But then, this: quote:
The CJC says the interviews “demonize both sides as murderous and irrational.”
I think that is quite a bit more than a concern with what is "age-appropriate." [Gawd, if there is a modern usage I detest, it is that use of "appropriate." Essence of smarm.]
From: gone | Registered: May 2001
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