BookTalk.org

One of my vast interest areas, and subsequently my area for my Honours thesis/creative work which I start next year [June Semester 2 for Australia] is Children's Literature.

Not any old kids lit mind, but the classics: Roald Dahl, Alice in Wonderland, Tove Jansson's Moomin books, Seven Little Australians, The Wizard of Oz, Harry Potter, Narnia, May Gibbs, Norman Lindsay, Edward Lear, all stuff I did in my course last semester - there are plenty of others too like Little Women, Anne of Green Gables and the list goes on.

Is there any one else interested in this topic? I'd like to compare notes and favourite books and ideas about it - I'm toying with doing a creative kids novel for my final work or a thesis on the female character in kids lit from the fairy tale to now [and not those rubbishy watered down ones we got flogged by sellers - I'm talking the true, raw ones of 1812 and stuff by Andersen and Grimm].

Let me know, I find the topic absolutely fascinating and my favourite theorist of the arena is Jack Zipes.

I am with you on this one. I HATE when my students ask if I have Pokemon books in the library. I try really hard to guide them to reading classics on their levels. I have been able to get them to read new classics (which is where I would put Harry Potter, Inkheart, or Kate DiCamillo books).

I have a few readers who are truly interested in those oldies, such as Heidi, Lewis Carrol books, Jules Verne, CS Lewis. Many will only read a book that looks new, which is why I am glad many of the classics are being reprinted. Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Anne of Green Gables, etc all have new updated covers.

It is disheartening to see what has happened to our next generation of readers. Very few can read classics due to the change in the way in which we speak and write. We have dumbed down our children and we wonder why Johnny and Susie cannot read. Parents do not read good books to their childre and expand their minds. They don't read the classics themselves.

I have a 3rd grade teacher who could not understand why I told her child she was not ready for Gone With the Wind. The parent had not read it, nor had she even seen the movie. They want their students to read but do not read well themselves. We do have a book club, but none focus on classics or even good literature. It is quite awful. I'd love to find out what books they have read themselves. My daughter is finishing the Jane Austen books, for fun! I don't think any of the teachers I know have even read one. It is a depressing predicament we are in today.

Kudos to your daughter - I read classics for fun myself. What saddens me too is when the need is felt by politically correct dope heads to edit books because the names are "inappropriate" or something in the book is too "old". I have one thing to say to these people" these books were written for their times and therefore should be left untouched. If Enid Blyton knew that her Magic Faraway Tree books had been changed slightly - Dick to Rick, Fanny to Frannie and Bessie to Beth [because apparently Bessie is a black girls name and all the kids were white], and Dame Slap to Dame Snap, I think she'd be rolling in her grave.