Ponderables #1

December 11th, 2004

Filed under: Books

When I was watching The Batman this morning, an ad came on for the movie Where the Red Fern Grows.

“I remember reading that book in elementary school,” I told the Polite-Wife.
“I could only read it once because it made me sad,” she said.
“But you make your class read The Bridge to Terebithia every year,” I pointed out.
“That’s different!” she pouted. Luckily, the commercial was over by then and the show was back on.

Why do we feel the need to make our children read these very sad depressing books? Do we learn anything from than other than that they are sad and depressing books that — while well written — are no fun to read? Which sad books like this do you remember having to read in school? (In addition to Where the Red Fern Grows and The Bridge to Terebithia, there was also A Taste of Blackberries. Page for page, the most depressing book I have ever read was Tess of the d’Urbervilles — though that wasn’t until high school)

(The Polite-Wife tells me that the saddest book to her is Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes. She reads it to her class every year and cries every time.)

2 Responses to “ Ponderables #1 ”

  1. Kitty
    December 11th, 2004 at 5:59 pm

    I don’t mind the sad books so much – they’re often more memorable than the happy ones. I do remember wigging out when our fourth grade teacher read *Hatchet* to us. In the first chapter, a pilot of a small plane has a heart attack, and the plane crashes in a forest. That was _not_ a happy storytime memory!

  2. Jim Kosmicki
    December 11th, 2004 at 10:58 pm

    actually, there’s been a discussion about this going around the web — I’m aware of it from Salon.com about 3-4 weeks ago and a review of a newish book dealing with the subject of “young adult” fiction and how we insist that it all has to have specific moral teaching points. I don’t recall if it was the book or the reviewer refuting the book, but the point was specifically made that books written intentionally to teach about “learning subjects” like death are NEVER going to be as effective as good books with memorable characters, one of whom happens to die.

    personally, I think it’s because humor is too subjective, and not seen as worthy of either teaching or learning about. Of course, they are wrong, wrong, wrong, but never try to educate an educator — they already know everything and are right, no matter what. (before your wife tries to find me and strangle me, remember that I’m a teacher too).

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