Reading aloud with kids...

[etakyma]

So my S-I-L mentioned today that she has been reading with the girls - my nieces are almost-10 and gonna-be-eight. They started a book that K (my S-I-L) described as being "too old" for them. She did not mean "too mature" or "age-inappropriate" she meant just "too OLD." The use of words were strange and confusing, and (I expect B, the younger girl) doesn't have the patience to let the story flow until the cadence of the words make it become a little clearer. I can imagine B would question everything - what is that, what does that mean, etc. G, the older girl, would probably just puzzle it out and let the story be told, knowing that she'll understand the mannerisms more as time goes on and the story unfolds.

They are reading an E. Nesbit book. Not one I've read, but it was published in 1907. Books from the a few decades later - the 30s 40s and 50s they don't seem to have any trouble with - I gave G the Elizabeth Enright quartet for Christmas and they didn't seem to have any trouble with it - depression into WWII era that it is.

Now, I remember Nesbit being pretty formal language-wise, and also terribly English - so perhaps that is part of it. Apparently a lot of the descriptions were difficult to suss out for them - rich descriptions of the land and such.

Now, when I was G's age I was given (by my crazy grandmother) a book written in 1881 which I loved, quite literally to pieces. I still have all the pieces bound together with string. I have replaced the book a couple of times with hardcover copies, but that first book, printed probably sometime in the sixties or seventies if I recall the cover, opened up the use of language in fiction. I love books written between 1880 and 1930 or so - especially those for children. Of course I focused on American authors - Gene Stratton Porter, Eleanor Porter, Margaret Sidney, Inez Haynes Irwin (Gillmore), Louisa May Alcott, Thornton Burgess, etc., so perhaps the language is or was more accessible to me.

Of course, I was a different sort of reader then either B or G. I got a beautiful copy of Jane Eyre as a birthday gift from my uncle when I was a tween and my mother and I read it together - the bits of french and all! At the same time I ate up science fiction and fantasy novels - any I could find.

Are there any books you tried to read as a kid, or with your kids, that you found unaccessible because of language barriers? Or do you think that is Not An Excuse to Put Down a Book? As reading is currently a group activity, I can see where it would be frustrating to have to inturrpt the story every few minutes to explain what the author is talking about. Especially as B is a chatterbox who does not settle down and do anything quietly - she is wired Always On - which is exhausting anyway.

Comments

[drvsilla.livejournal.com]

S & I had a difficult time listening to, trying to decipher & enjoy Don Quixote. I was around six, and tho we were reassured it was amusing & to give it a chance, it just never quite made sense or gelled for us on first read.

I revisited it much later, and while I have to say it's not a favorite by any stretch, I got through it fine as an adult. But I could see [and had reinforced] what wasn't accessible about it for a child.

[etakyma.livejournal.com]

I can see Don Quixote might be a trifle "thick" for a child of six or nine or twelve. I think the concepts might be difficult to grasp without a whole lot of experience to back it up. But kudos for even giving it a shot!

I was talking to my mom about this and we both figured B would not have the patience to stick with it, but G most likely would. I spoke about that weirdness that happens when you first read Shakespeare and the first ten pages or so make no sense until your brain clicks over and it become clear - you just have to slog through waiting for the click to happen, so you can go back and reread the bit you missed.

It happens faster when it is spoken, or performed, but I've always thought Shakespeare strange in that way. Gotta wait for the click (or as my mother put it "twist"). Of course, once you've read enough Shakespeare your brain is accustomed to the mental acrobatics and you no longer have that waiting period...

[drvsilla.livejournal.com]

Truly. I had no idea it was a satire -- and a bare grasp of what satire even was! -- and it simply didn't register what Don Q was doing or why, that it was out of place/time, all that. Left me baffled. That might have colored my lack of enjoyment when I tackled it later, but I'd say it's not really my taste regardless.

TOTALLY know what you're meaning with the click. Just this summer during Shakespeare in the Park that happened for me -- listening, and laboring, then suddenly, it's all fluid & snappy & sensical. :]

[flourish.livejournal.com]

I read Louisa May Alcott and so on, but when I was twelve I did not - NOT!!! - want to read Pride & Prejudice. My mother made me. I'm grateful to her to this day.

[etakyma.livejournal.com]

Huh, interesting. I can't stand Jane Austen. It goes back to having to read "Emma" in HS for Great Western Lit class. It was the only - and I mean ONLY book I never finished for that class (I read the first fifty pages and the last fifty pages, and surprise surprise nothing happened and nobody grew into a likeable character or DID anything at all). We read Homer (the Odyssey), DH Lawrence (Son and Lovers), Dickens (Great Expectations), etc. But after attempting to slog through it for weeks, I called halt, told the teacher I was not finishing the book and my reasons why, and she was surprisingly okay with that.

As I was one of the only kids in the class who actually read, cover to cover, ALL the other books...

Yeah, my hate-affair with Austen is pretty well known, and people laugh. Make pretty good movies, but as books, my personal opinion is they suck, and are boring and NOTHING ever happens of note. I know the subtlety of language is supposed to be wonderful and blah blah blah but I just can NOT stand them!

It didn't help that Austen was my crazy grandmother's favorite author. I probably still have a beautiful copy of Pride and Prejudice she gave me that I tried to read time and again when I was growing up and never got past the first three chapters of. I kept hoping I would grow into it, that it would become less horrid after a while. No dice.

Ah, well.

[servicemonkey.livejournal.com]

When my eldest niece was young we would read Ramona books, I would read a chapter and she would read the next, hard for her because she is dyslectic.

I guess mine would be Pearl S Buck's The Good Earth, toooo looong and drawn out... so much so it had me dead in the water and it was assigned reading. I read everything that I could lay my hands on as a kid, read Agatha Cristie at 10 she was a bit dry but like you said great movies not so much tasty reading, though there was one I did like Seven Dials Mystery.

I always had a hard time reading, thick I am some things take a bit to get absorbed but since I am mega stubborn I just plowed on