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Originally Posted by meeera
Eh, you'll not hear screaming from me- short of something on the level of American Psycho, I don't censor my kid's reading. He's welcome to plunder our shelves, the library, etc, to his heart's content.
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Actually, I was referring to all the screaming from entrenched true believers in Tolkien, who get extremely upset at the idea that Brooks' books sat on the bestseller lists for 5 months, because the first one, Sword, is, absolutely, an "homage" to Tolkien--there's simply no other nice way to phrase it. I've seen vitriolic arguments over Brooks' right to exist at ALL, essentially. BUT...I think that SOS and its successors in interest are really more age-suitable, in terms of readability and simplicity, than Tolkien, for the average 11-y.o. boy. That's all I meant.
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But personally, and just from experience here as well as what I've heard from YA librarians, I'd be more inclined to recommend/gift more recent books. The Dark is Rising was very much an anomaly in terms of my kid enjoying older books - most SF "classics" and beloved books of my childhood leave him cold. Which I don't mind, really, since there is far more diversity of characters (and writers) and less entrenched sexism in more recent books, I find. Even the Pern series, much as I love it, has its issues. (I don't avoid exposing him to media with issues - but we do discuss and dissect the problems therein.)
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Oh, I agree that the DOP series has some SERIOUS sexism issues. I mean, I don't think I'll ever forget reading a line--and this must be nigh on 30 years ago--with one rider (female) saying to another that "no MAN can ever clean anything" and being incensed at the idea that it's a woman's role--a woman who is, meantime, oh, gosh, busy running a weyr. What codswallop. I felt that Anne really misstepped with some of it, but, in fairness, her generation fought WWII. I can't get too upset with her.
Vis-à-vis sexism, frankly, fantasy is RIFE with it. LOTR, and, to be more up-to-date, Twifright, anyone? There's almost NOTHING more sexist than Twilight. ("I'm a teenage girl with no apparent appearance; I have no interests; I have no value in and of myself, EXCEPT, now I do, because two alpha males want me. I have zero after-school activities; I don't act in plays, I don't major in journalism, I don't do...well, anything. When I think my boyfriend dies/goes away, I mope in my bedroom FOR A YEAR. But, bygod, I can describe how much my BOYFRIEND SPARKLES over 200 times in the first 200 pages of the book!" Ye gods.)
I think that millions of kids still read and love Narnia; still read and love TBStallion; still read and love LOTR (in their teens). Hard to get much older than LOTR, in fantasy, really (unless you count A Christmas Carol, and IMHO, that's still a good read). I mean, hell....Holmes doesn't age as well, to be utterly heretical.
I don't think it's that easy to get away from sexism in the classic kids' stories (Peter Pan, anyone?), but frankly, it's more worrisome to me that you can't get away from it in stories written TODAY.
@Wolfie: if you mean, THE Mary Stewart, I'd say you're correct. Is that what we're talking about here?
Hitch