Ewww, fantasy is bad! Won't you think of the Children?

[Waylander]

This is just so stupid. Feel free disabuse this person of these notions if you like.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016...458+sf25790458

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by Waylander

This is just so stupid. Feel free disabuse this person of these notions if you like.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016...458+sf25790458

Eh.

There's no name on the byline, so this is intentional trolling. I don't know if I will respond.

[Cinisajoy]

Depends on the fantasy.
One kind is good for children, the other kind is bad for children.

[Nate the great]

The original source is even worse than the quotes:
http://www.theacornschool.com/news/t...-of-the-child/

I stand for the old-fashioned values of traditional literature, classical poetry, Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley, Dickens and Shakespeare, and the great writers who will still be read in future years by those children whose parents adopt a protective attitude towards ensuring that dark, demonic literature, carefully sprinkled with ideas of magic, of control and of ghostly and frightening stories that will cause the children who read them to seek for ever more sensational things to add to those they have already been exposed to. What then of their subconscious minds? What then of the minds of children whose parents couldn’t give the time to look closely at childhood; the sensitive period of the development of every human being? Where will this addiction to unacceptable literature lead?

I want children to read literature that is conducive to their age and leave those mystical and frightening texts for when they can discern reality, and when they have first learned to love beauty. Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, The Hunger Games, and Terry Pratchett, to mention only a few of the modern world’s ‘must-haves’, contain deeply insensitive and addictive material which I am certain encourages difficult behaviour in children; yet they can be bought without a special licence, and can damage the sensitive subconscious brains of young children, many of whom may be added to the current statistics of mentally ill young children. For young adults, this literature, when it can be understood for what it is, is the choice of many!

[DiapDealer]

carefully sprinkled with ideas of magic, of control and of ghostly and frightening stories

Thank goodness none of his examples of appropriate, "traditional" authors ever wrote any works that contained any of that nonsense.

Frankenstein
A Christmas Carol
A Midsummer Night's Dream
The Tempest
Ode to a Nightingale

[MGlitch]

Not worth getting all hot and bothered over. I suspect that, much like the teacher who agreed with him, that he has not actually given the subject matter an actual read through. Rather he read some synopsis and maybe some reviews and drew conclusions from there.

Sad that he is in a position to educate the young, and yet shows an inability to think critically.

[FizzyWater]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Thank goodness none of his examples of appropriate, "traditional" authors ever wrote any works that contained any of that nonsense.

Frankenstein
A Christmas Carol
A Midsummer Night's Dream
The Tempest
Ode to a Nightingale

That's what I was thinking.

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Thank goodness none of his examples of appropriate, "traditional" authors ever wrote any works that contained any of that nonsense.

Frankenstein
A Christmas Carol
A Midsummer Night's Dream
The Tempest
Ode to a Nightingale

I think Shelley referred to the poet, not his more famous wife.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

I think Shelley referred to the poet, not his more famous wife.

Ok. "Queen Mab", then.

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Ok. "Queen Mab", then.

Cool.

Thanks for posting the list; I'm going to use it in my post to undercut him.

[DiapDealer]

Clearly ... "classic" tales of magic, ghosts, monsters and fairy creatures were much less subversive than the newer ones tend to be.

[Pulpmeister]

It's a Steiner school, and the late Rudolf Steiner was himself an occultist and mysticist, founding the Anthroposophical Society, a spinoff or splinter from Theosophy. Lots of fantasy in those belief systems. Steiner could see all sorts of things in fairy tales.

[RichL]

My children and most of the children I have dealt with must have been near geniuses. I don't know how often I have heard five year olds (you know, the ones that can't think.) say 'That's just silly' or some such when I've read them a fairy tale or some other make believe. I also wonder what he got out of Game of Thrones and The Hunger Games. Three things were woven throughout both books: (1) No matter the odds, I can succeed (2) I have friends (3) No matter the odds, We can succeed.


I have to wonder if Graeme Whiting has children.

[bgalbrecht]

He forgot to mention how playing Dungeons & Dragons can lead to devil worship.

By all means, let's go back to reading the classics, like the original Grimm's Fairy Tails, not that awful Disneyfied stuff.

[Manabi]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Thank goodness none of his examples of appropriate, "traditional" authors ever wrote any works that contained any of that nonsense.

Frankenstein
A Christmas Carol
A Midsummer Night's Dream
The Tempest
Ode to a Nightingale

Don't forget fairy tales. Plenty of magic, control and if you read the originals instead of the watered-down versions there's some serious gore and frightening stuff. Sleeping Beauty alone has most of that and is pretty terrifying.

In its 13th century version and the one written by Giambatista Basile in 16th century, it is not the kiss that awakens Sleeping Beauty, but the nudging of her children. So the story goes that while Sleeping Beauty lies unconscious, a prince charming comes, not to rescue her, but to rape her. Somehow, Sleeping Beauty is impregnated and giving birth to twins while still sleeping, even the pain of childbirth couldn’t wake her up. After birth, one of the babies accidently sucks the splinter out of Sleeping Beauty’s finger and breaks the curse. Sleeping beauty wakes up after sleeping for one hundred years only to find that she had been raped and is now a mother of two.

Unfortunately enough for Sleeping Beauty, the prince already married to someone else. The angry wife orders her servant to kill Sleeping Beauty and her children, cook them and serve them in a stew for her husband. Outraged, the prince throws his wife to the fire. And guess what, Sleeping Beauty forgives what the prince had done to her, forgets that he had killed his wife, marries him and the couple can still live happily ever after.

Source: http://yovitasiswati.expertscolumn.c...ape-and-ogress

Frankly I think the idea that children's literature needs to be sanitized ridiculous. Many, many generations have grown up reading stuff far worse than anything they're complaining about. Also this part, emphasis added:

Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, The Hunger Games, and Terry Pratchett, to mention only a few of the modern world’s ‘must-haves’, contain deeply insensitive and addictive material which I am certain encourages difficult behaviour in children

I've read nearly everything Pratchett ever wrote, and I can't think of ways any of it would encourage "difficult behaviour in children." Maybe what he means is "They encourage children to think independently and this makes it harder for us to teach them because they actually ask questions our teachers have trouble asking."

Also, Game of Thrones seems out of place in that list. It's not targeted at a young adult audience, and is one of the most "adult" fantasy series out there.