Reply to Does "The Hunger Games" belong in a middle-school library?

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Reply to "Does "The Hunger Games" belong in a middle-school library?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

Well, o.k.  But middle school kids have been reading classics like The Outsiders, To Kill a Mockingbird, the Diary of Anne Frank for decades.  And there is a reason for that - those particular classics are usually right at a middle school kid's interest level.  That doesn't mean that the kid can't read the book well before middle school or well after middle school.  It just means that the impact of the story will be best felt in/around middle school.

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The Outsiders is actually a YA book -- not just published for teenagers, but written by a teenager. Anne Frank's diary was written by a teenager (and edited by her father, but anyway).

A teenager can read To Kill A Mockingbird and get a lot out of it, just as a teenager can read The Yearling and get a lot out of it; or really, just as a teenager can read most books and get a lot out of it. But somebody who read To Kill A Mockingbird as a teenager, and then re-reads it as an adult, will find a lot of stuff they missed when they read it as a teenager.[/quote]

I think that the same sort of thing could be said for the Children's Classics like Sounder, Old Yeller, Where the Red Fern Grows.  Kids love animal stories.  These stories were written for kids and they appeal to kids. But adults/teens can read and enjoy these stories and they will see things, get meanings that the younger crowd might miss.  The Phantom Tollbooth is a children's classic but anyone who is familiar with it knows that MUCH of the meaning will fly right over the heads of elementary school kids.

Many of the classic fairy tales that we read to our preschoolers/kinders today are actually retold versions of tales that were written for adults. [/quote]

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