In the 7th grade, I unearthed The Hobbit from my dad's collection of dog-eared sci-fi/fantasy novels and have never looked back. In recent years, I was surprised to learn that Stanley Unwin, part of the original publishing house that took on Tolkien's work, gave The Hobbit to his 10-year-old son to read and review before they ultimately acquired it. I'm intrigued to find that earlier generations placed The Hobbit squarely in the camp of children's literature (ages 5-9). Though I first read it as a child, there was much in The Hobbit that I didn't appreciate the initial time through: the songs and poems (does anyone else skim through those spots?), the vocabulary, the allusions to mythology. Perhaps this says something about the weak areas in my own education or how we've all become stupider over the years, but I think it also has something to do with the lack of reader-designations.
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| Rayner Unwin's original review |
The Hobbit hit the shelves long before the designations of "middle-grade" and "young adult" became standard bookstore fare, when readers graduated from children's books to adult novels according to taste, not grade-level or even reading ability. I think there's something helpful about reading beyond our comprehension, something timeless about being able to return to re-read a favorite and find new things that our past selves might not have perceived. Have we lost this fluidity in today's classrooms, bookstores, and libraries? It could be that the middle-grade category, as useful as it is, might also be quite limiting. Will today's 10-year-olds, faced with more age-determined marketing, reach for a novel they might not fully understand? Or will they hunt down something aimed specifically at their age-group?
What do you think? When do the designations "middle-grade" and "young adult" cease to be helpful? And, whom, primarily do they serve?
P.S. It's also a good time of the year to pick up Tolkien's Father Christmas Letters. So clever!
I remember being on a trip with my dad when I was eight or nine. He was a trucker and was hauling logs in the Pacific Northwest. It was going to be a long trip—about a week—and my father, being a man of few words, found that I was just a little too talkative. He pulled his rig over in one town to pick up some snacks and told me to buy a book. I looked over the rack of paperbacks and found Frankenstein. it had on the cover a photo of Boris Karloff as the monster, and being a fan of the Universal Studio's classic monster movies (and a subscriber to Famous Monsters of Filmland), I snatched it up.
ReplyDeleteOnce we got back into the cab, I discovered that the book was Mary Shelley's actual novel and I had a hard time with many of the words. I'd ask my dad what "Genevese" meant or other words like, "procured" "hitherto" "reverential" and "vagrants." Not an hour went by before my dad pulled the rig over again and bought me a dictionary, instructing me to "look the damn words up if you don't know 'em."
I did. And I understood perhaps more of the book (on the level of plot and adventure), than I otherwise might have. I took pleasure in the fact that I read an adult book and this is the experience that propelled me into the life of a serious reader.
I think a book like The Wind in the Willows is also one of those stories that are a little beyond children. But I think some of the best children's literature works best when it's a book that's best understood when an adult reads it to you. There is much that can be interpreted well just by using the right inflection and tone of voice. I can't even begin to imagine what a child, left to it's own, would make of a book like Russell Hoban's The Mouse and His Child!
By the way, I must confess that I still prefer Frankenstein the movie to the book.
I love this story! I am a firm believer in reading above one's level, because nothing increases vocabulary and insight like growing pains.
DeleteAnd I agree with you on The Wind in the Willows. I started that as a lunchtime read-aloud to my boys, and, while much of it was way over their heads, it was just right for challenging words and concepts.
Richard Adams is somewhat similar to Tolkien, in that ... dang. I was thinking of Watership Down, not Wind in the Willows. My bad.
DeleteAhem. But my point was that Adams, like Tolkien, only wrote the one "children's book."
My husband picked Watership Down as our family read aloud a few years ago. I was worried the boys wouldn't like it, as they were in first and third grade. They didn't get everything, but they loved it -- largely, I think, because they're daddy did. We'd hear Fiver and BigWig and Strawberry added into their playtime.
DeleteReading parents are gifts to children. Keep it up, moms and dads!
Now THAT is awesome, Caroline!
DeleteMatt MacNish is going to be all over this, Marissa!
ReplyDeleteI think MG and YA designations help marketers, primarily. But current writing is different from the Children's Classics of long ago, which had more complicated vocabulary and syntax. Now, if I use a "complex" word in my writing, my critique group quibbles, saying that it is above such-and-such grade level. Being an old fossil, however, I persist, believing that children should be exposed to words they have to look up in a dictionary.
I like Richard's comment above, and his suggestion that "some of the best children's literature works best when it's a book that's best understood when an adult reads it to you." Reading aloud to my children is something I love to do, and which they seem to appreciate. It brings the reading experience into another level.
Agreed. I think the quest for marketability limits us in some ways as writers. I like to squeeze a few "too complex" words in, even though I know it might be precocious.
DeleteI remember finally deleting the adjective "sonsy" from a draft - just too much of a reach.
And I agree with you and Richard that read-alouds are an essential piece of kids' reading. I remember a memoir to that effect some years back where the girl and her dad had read books aloud together and continued to do so until she was a young adult. Will have to look up the title - nice idea for sure.
"The Reading Promise: My Father and the Books We Shared", by: Alice Ozma
DeleteI will still hold a long conversation with anyone who is willing to listen about a book like The Book Thief. I completely agree that the best books are ageless and timeless, and can speak to a reader in many different ways, at many different points in their lives.
DeleteAnyway, I love this post so much. Thanks, Marissa!
Just having kids read is reason enough to celebrate.
ReplyDeleteThe HOBBIT is obviously a perennial classic for any kid of good reading ability, however, I remember finding a copy of Marx's COMMUNIST MANIFESTO in my father's library when I was a teenager and read it one summer afternoon in the park. I was the perfect age to be won over by it. It beat all the fiction I'd ever read. Made me politically conscience ever since.
Definitely. I think parents who read are the biggest influence on their kids, and kids stretch their minds by exploring their parents' libraries. Thanks for stopping by!
DeleteThe designations help as a general guideline, but it depends on the child. It was a struggle for me to read The Hobbit in 7th grade (Peer pressure! The cartoon movie was hitting the theaters!), but my son read it in 3rd grade and loved it. Some books are best read several times, at different ages (The Phantom Tollbooth). I look at everything listed from 3rd to 10th grade for my middle school, but it is good to have a general idea.
ReplyDeleteYes! You're so right that it really can vary based on individual readers. And I remember that cartoon! I think that might have been what kept me away from the novels for so long - haha! - although I've since enjoyed them.
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ReplyDeleteHa, and the review is written in cursive. A true sign of the times there. I agree that there are books like that. The ones we really like, but don't fully appreciate until we blossom a bit as readers (and perhaps writers). I believe HOLES is a modern book that may serve in this manner for the modern MG readers. There is much depth that may not be seen by a MG reader, but may be unearthed in later readings. Good post.
ReplyDeleteI know, right? I'm nerdy enough to be sad that my kids won't learn cursive in school...
DeleteI'm here! Finally. I took the day off work today, to put the tree up, and get some shopping done that couldn't be done alone. So I haven't been reading blogs, even though I scheduled a lot of things for today. Sheesh.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, this post means so much to me. I'll begin with a story.
The Hobbit was originally published in 1937. My father was yet to be born, but the historic significance of this tale, and the fact that the later story of the War of the Ring was heavily influenced by Tolkien's own time serving in World War I, and that this little children's book came out during one of the darkest times in the history of our world ... in the long run, these things all came together to make Tolkien's work a favorite of my father's.
Now, 1980 eventually comes along, or perhaps it was 1982, I can't recall, but I was maybe three years old, or maybe I was five, and my father brought my sister and I into the master bedroom, patted the bedspread beside him, and as we jumped into that world of imaginative indulgence, he cracked the spine of The Hobbit, and started reading to us.
I can remember that night still, vividly, and it changed my life forevermore. The Hobbit, and then the Lord of the Rings, were the first four novels I ever read. At least they're the first four I remember reading. I'm sure something like The Pokey Little Puppy came first, but I REMEMBER the Hobbit. I always have.
It probably helped that I had a picture book copy that came with a read along vinyl record, that told the same story, in less words, but that doesn't really matter, because it isn't really about the writing, or whether or not it's above a young person reading level (as far as I'm concerned) so much as middle grade fiction, and middle grade stories are about the ability to inspire. To ignite an imagination, and to make a mind come alive with possibility.
That's what stories are all about. That's what's they'll always mean to me.
Yes! to MG's ability to inspire and ignite the imagination.
DeleteI love this image of you and your sister piling close to your dad for a read-aloud and a whole new world opening up to you. I wonder for how many of us the LOTR and The Hobbit were our first threshold books into otherworlds. So magical.
I'm thinking this New Year might be time to read THE HOBBIT to my six-year-old and four-year-old...
It's one of the best read-aloud books ever!
DeleteWhat a great story of your own, Matt. I actually got a little misty-eyed. I guess it's all a result of my loving the parent-child reading bond.
ReplyDeleteYou should try to find that read-along vinyl, it was so awesome!
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