For young readers

[Impenitent]

Military histories might work! He's a little gun obsessed currently - anything that goes boom...

Last of the Mohicans doesn't have enough direct action to make up for the archaic language. And, oddly, he doesn't want to read Harry Potter. Loved the movies, and loved having the first two read out to him, but doesn't want to persist with the books.

He's read all the Deltora Quest and Rowan of Rin books though; and I often find him delving through them again.

He just likes quests, I guess, with swords and battles.

[Primula Baggins]

I haven't read them, but there's a fantasy series by Lloyd Alexander that a friend's son loved at a younger age. I think it starts with The Black Cauldron.

Or maybe they've already been mentioned, or haven't been published in Australia.

[Impenitent]

I shall check for them, Prim.

[MithLuin]

Those books are called the Prydain Chronicles, and there are 5 of them. And yes, I recommend them! My brother (the reader) thought Eilonwe was annoying, but he liked "poor starving Gurgi".

Hmmm, their titles are:

• The Book of Three
  The Black Cauldron
  <something>
  Taran Wanderer
  The High King

They are basic fantasy, with a clear Welsh flavor. And the hero is a young boy

There is also Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising series, and T.A. Baron's Young Merlin books.

[Impenitent]

Thank you for those recommendations! I found the Prydain Chronicles at our favourite bookshop yesterday and they shall be begun very soon.

And the others - well, he'll have reading matter for a couple of months, anyway, and then - who knows? He may even consider expanding his literary interests.

Do kids read the classics these days? Are mine unusual for disdaining Heidi (my daughter, that is) and Robinson Crusoe and What Katie Did and Treasure Island (even though they loved Treasure Planet)? They're readers but these books don't attract them at all. Have others had any experience with these?

[Primula Baggins]

I think kids these days, even ones who haven't been overexposed to fast-paced entertainment, have less patience for the slower pace, longer descriptions, and greater vocabulary demands of the classics. Heck, I know intelligent adults who can't read Trollope or Austen or even Dickens for exactly that reason.

I've really tried to get my kids to read those older books, because I'm afraid they'll grow up like those adults, unable to enjoy a vast section of literature in English. Tolkien helped. And the Three Musketeers, and Captains Courageous. I also (I have no shame) showed them movie adaptations, and that sometimes helped them pick up the associated book because it gave their imaginations a boost and tickled their curiosity to find out more about the characters and the story.

Though they never did devour the older books the way I did, they can all read them, and my oldest got all the way through Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin books in four years, no mean challenge for a kid—plenty of adults bounce off those.

Maybe your kids disdain some of the classics, Imp, but if they're readers and if they can read older books, I think you're well ahead of the game.

I do have a friend who figured out when her son was 11 or 12 that he ignored books she recommended because she recommended them. She couldn't even give them to him as presents—that was too pushy! So, she just made sure they were on the shelves and let him find them.

[Impenitent]

Oh, my daughter won't take my recommendations! Drives me to distraction because she really loves reading and ends up re-reading the same books over and over (says the woman who's read LoTR/Silm etc at least 40 times over ) But Tolkien is different, as I'm sure you'll agree.

I do worry that they will never cultivate the patience rerquired to appreciate some really lovely literature - and I use the same ruse as you, using movie adaptations in the hope that the books will then be more palatable. It worked with Robin Hood and LoTR (though Jazz hasn't got past The Hobbit at this stage...but there's hope!)

I'll try the 'stocking the shelves' method and see if they browse.

Oh! Artemis Fowl has been discovered! And the Charlie Bone books. Nice, meaty stories, both.

[Alatar]

Speaking as one of the "intelligent adults" struggling with Dickens at the moment, I have to say that it is simply a matter of priorities. With only so much time in the evening I choose to spend some of my time on the computer, some watching TV, a large chunk sorting out kids, and about 10-15 mins in bed reading before I sleep.

With only 15-20 mins reading time one of three things happens. Either the book is superb and you end up reading well into the early hours, the book is ok and you plod along at that pace, or the book is too slow and requires more time and effort than you have available.

Such was my experience with Great Expectations. Unlike Pride and Prejudice, which I read in 5 chapter chunks online, I brought GE on holiday with me. I had the time to read properly and enjoyed it while I was reading. Now, however, I'm back in the daily hustle and I simply don't have the time for that (or rather I don't choose to spend the time on it at the expense of my other activities).

It bugs me when I see comments like this:

I've really tried to get my kids to read those older books, because I'm afraid they'll grow up like those adults, unable to enjoy a vast section of literature in English.

Are you including me in this, an adult to be pitied? Has it ever occurred to you this is not an inability, but simply a preference? I choose to spend my limited time on the material I enjoy most. That is not a failing. I like to think that any parent should be glad to have their children grow into someone like me.

[Aravar]

The Dangerous Book for Boys is a little un-PC, it has the stories of Nelson, Scott and Douglas Bader in it, nad included in the poems every boy should know is Sir Henry Newbolt's Vita Lampada.

It has a great reading list inlcuding JRRT, CS Lewis, Sharpe Flashman (which really is for older boys) Terry Pratchett. It also suggests the Belgariad.

It's a fantastic book. One of the authors, Conn Iggulden has done quite a good fiction sereis called Emperor, about Julius Caesar.

One set of children's books which I loved as a child and am re-reading now and finding them still great are the Swallows and Amazons series by Arthur Ransome. Apparently JRRT's children loved them too. They concern the adventures of a group of children on boating holiday in the Lake District, the Norfolk Broads and elsewhere in the 1930s. The books are partly about how the children transform the real landscape into an imaginary one: in Winter Holiday the lake freezes, so they become arctic exploreers and so on.

[Impenitent]

For my part, Alatar, there is a vast difference between someone whose tastes vary from my own, and someone who simply cannot appreciate a vast swathe of literature.

You prefer not to continue with GE; seems perfectly legitimate to me, it did not adequately engage you. I'm sure you've read a book or two that I couldn't stick with for similar reasons. But one book is one book. I wouldn't infer anything from that.

[Primula Baggins]

Alatar, I'm sorry you were offended by what I said. I did not mean you at all. There are vast swathes of literature I don't read either, because life is too short and I'd rather spend my time reading things I actively enjoy or that are useful to me.

I didn't mean preference; I meant ability. I was thinking specifically of a friend of mine who has loved several of the recent adaptations of Jane Austen, would dearly love to read the originals, and can't—not "doesn't care to" or "doesn't enjoy it," but "can't force her eyes down the page." It's the language: she can't focus her mind on it, it's too wordy for her. And this is a bright woman, a writer, who reads a lot of books.

You obviously don't have the same literary blind spot, as you did read P&P. Choosing not to finish GE is a choice for you, and we all make the same kinds of choices every time we pick up one book and not another.

And of course I would be happy if any of my kids turned out like you.

[Frelga]

I didn't mean preference; I meant ability. I was thinking specifically of a friend of mine who has loved several of the recent adaptations of Jane Austen, would dearly love to read the originals, and can't—not "doesn't care to" or "doesn't enjoy it," but "can't force her eyes down the page." It's the language: she can't focus her mind on it, it's too wordy for her. And this is a bright woman, a writer, who reads a lot of books.

A writer?

I've always loved "wordy" books, books with gorgeous language. I've mentioned Kipling in other threads, Tolkien of course, Pratchett. I liked Jonathan Strange and Mister Norrell because the writer took the time to play with style and embellishments instead of galloping through the plot to the finish line.

I finally figured out the problem I have with my son's reading. He is an early reader, but he sticks to the books his school provides. They are written in very simple language. He doesn't like me to read to him, he refuses to read the books I recommend. Oi.

The other week he was sick and I chased him into bed for a nap. I talked him into listening to Wind in the Willow - there's a gorgeously written book, but hard reading for a kid. One page and he had enough. Last night he wanted me to read (huzzah!) but we couldn't agree on a book. I tried to suggest Farmer Gille - no go. Why? It's got a dragon, knights, a magic sword and it's not scary! No go. Then - how about Wind in the Willows? We got through 2 more pages, with me miming difficult words like "sinuous" and I think he wanted more. We'll see how that goes.

[Primula Baggins]

Frelga, you are an ingenious, persistent, loving mom—there's no way you won't win him over in the end!

Yes, my friend is a writer, but she reads mostly literary fiction, where for a long time the style has been absolute minimalism. And in her own books, which are serious mainstream fiction, her constant goal is to take out more and more and more until there's nothing left that doesn't have to be there for the story to exist. It's a completely different esthetic from "It will be necessary to our tale to clarify in the reader's mind the precise relative situations of Fotheringhay Park and the cottage wherein dwelt our heroine. . . ."

[yovargas]

It's a completely different esthetic from "It will be necessary to our tale to clarify in the reader's mind the precise relative situations of Fotheringhay Park and the cottage wherein dwelt our heroine. . . ."

Just reading that one sentence made me wanna hit things.
That is obviously not my style.

[Primula Baggins]

I made it up.

I promise I don't really write that way.

[truehobbit]

I couldn't stand the longish, classic books when I was a kid. If the story still wasn't well under way by page ten, I'd leave it. People gave me "David Copperfield" and "Treasure Island" and J. Fenimore Cooper (don't know the English title and am too lazy to look it up) and Karl May (that's one most of you guys won't know ), and stuff like that, but I couldn't bring myself to read it.

I'm still not a voracious reader, and I get impatient with a book pretty quickly, though not necessarily because it's too slow - but the point is that I do think I'm well able to appreciate literature now. Just because you're not into something at age ten or twelve, doesn't mean you'll not get into it later.

(However, I could read at an early age, and have enjoyed playing with language and the sound of words and phrases for as long as I can remember, so I guess there was something literary there, though something different from what makes big readers. )

[Frelga]

I know Karl May from movies, does that count?

[truehobbit]

Actually, that's how I know him, too!

Loved the movies when I was a kid - my first major fandom, really - but was bored when I tried a book. I gave it another try later, when I was in my twenties, and still didn't like it.

But - which movies do you mean? I wonder if ours are the same movies, because I've never heard of them being shown internationally (at least I've never met anyone not German who'd seen them).
(You could PM me, if it would lead the thread too far off track, but I simply must know whether there's someone here who's seen the same movies! )

[Primula Baggins]

Karl May wrote Westerns!

hobby, when you make your visit here, you must come see the West! Even after all this time it has a very different "feel" from the East and the central parts of the country. And it's beautiful.

[Frelga]

Hobby, I saw the East (?) German movies, some of them anyway. With... what's his name, Winnetou? Didn't Goiko Mitic play him - talk about a crush.