[Katsunami]

@Hitch, @ApK:

I agree that children need to build displince and structured thinking, but IMHO, thrusting a big fat classic on a 14-y/o is not the way to do it. You don't start out on the piano or organ playing Bach.

I'm not against children having to just bull their way through something, just because it has to be done and there is no alternative; think the more difficult math. It just is what it is, and if one needs to learn it, there's no other way to just do it. But, in math, one works upward from simple stuff to the more difficult stuff; at least it was so with me, in school.

Now, here's the cracker; normally you would keep reading kid's books up until 13-14 year old (second year of high school) if reading English, and and then, suddenly, they drop you right in the middle of Chaucer, Shakespeare and Dickens (or the Dutch/French/German equivalents of those languages).

I don't know if you can do that in the UK or other English-speaking countries with any form success, but in the Netherlands, you can't. *MY* English, Dutch, German and general feeling of languages at the age of 13-14 was good enough to read adult non-Dutch books successfully (slowly, with some difficulty and the use of a dictionary), but that certainly isn't the norm. I liken that to playing the organ/piano since 7 year old, but sticking to pieces such as 'Mary Had a Little Lamb' and 'Frère Jacques' for 6-7 years, and then, suddenly, you're required to play Bach, Beethoven, Chopin.... No go.