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Topic: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - the SPOILER thread!  (Read 19344 times)

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Re: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - the SPOILER thread!
« Reply #105 on: July 27, 2007, 10:47:06 PM »
Kids are smarter than we give them credit for.  Most children's books are a bit too dumbed-down in my opinion. 

Captain Underpants anyone?  ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::)

Okay, I need to step in here.

All of you who are spouting about 'literature' need to keep something in mind when it comes to children's books - they are books for CHILDREN.  Not adults.  A ten year-old really doesn't care how well-written a book is.  They just care that it's interesting.  Or funny.  Or gross.  These are things that children look for in books.  They don't care about Booker Prize short lists or Newbery Awards.  Series like Captain Underpants are constantly derided as low-brow by adults.  Guess what?  They ARE low-brow, which is exactly what their audience wants.

I don't understand this need for people to try to turn children into small adults when it comes to books.  Why is it so horrible that Timmy wants to read something written by someone who doesn't (gasp!) have a degree in Comparative Literature?  Why does it matter if the prose isn't on par with <insert author here>?

I'm sorry, but looking down on anyone, adult or child, because they choose to enjoy something written by someone who doesn't have the correct credentials is plain snobbery.


Re: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - the SPOILER thread!
« Reply #106 on: July 27, 2007, 10:54:56 PM »
FunGirl. Thanks for accusing me of snobbery, however I have personally read one of the Captain Underpants books out loud to two young boys I used to babysit. I was not implying that the writing is low brow or somehow unworthy. I was implying that the books are nothing but fart jokes and teaching kids that teachers, principals, and parents are evil and children should misbehave. The boys I read them to didn't even like the book (and in fact told me it was stupid and we didn't finish it) and they were prime culprits for enjoying grossities and fart jokes. If you haven't read one yourself, then try to. They're miserable books, even for little boys.

ETA: After that, we started reading their dad's old Hardy Boys books and they loved them. More imagination and more brain power used while reading them, and yet, they're still probably considered "dumbed down" to some.
« Last Edit: July 27, 2007, 10:56:32 PM by SomedayInTheUK »


Re: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - the SPOILER thread!
« Reply #107 on: July 28, 2007, 02:26:27 AM »
If you haven't read one yourself, then try to. They're miserable books, even for little boys.

ETA: After that, we started reading their dad's old Hardy Boys books and they loved them. More imagination and more brain power used while reading them, and yet, they're still probably considered "dumbed down" to some.

I worked with children's books for over two years, and have read several of the Captain Underpants books.  I honestly don't see anything wrong with them.  Do they really teach kids to undermine teachers and other authority figures?  Doubtful.  As someone mentioned, kid are smarter than adults give them credit for.

As for the snob comment, I apologize if it came off sounding harsh.  It wasn't aimed solely at you, but at many people who have similar arguments.  However, it's hard no to think it when you write things like:
Okay... I totally didn't know that... and now I am disturbed by it! The likes of Jane Austen, Plath, and Dickens are rolling over in their graves.

My point, and I don't know if I'm getting it across, is simply that if kids are reading books - any books - that's a victory.


Re: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - the SPOILER thread!
« Reply #108 on: July 28, 2007, 03:04:24 AM »
As for the snob comment, I apologize if it came off sounding harsh.  It wasn't aimed solely at you, but at many people who have similar arguments.  However, it's hard no to think it when you write things like:

Quote
Okay... I totally didn't know that... and now I am disturbed by it! The likes of Jane Austen, Plath, and Dickens are rolling over in their graves.

I said that only after someone else said that JK was trained as a writer, meaning, isn't an amateur and knew what she was doing in writing a fictional narrative. In addition, it was meant with a bit of playful sarcasm. I apologize if it didn't come off that way. I don't pretend to know how to write books, but there's a reason I can't read Dan Brown's books (they're written so badly that I have a hard time processing them). JK's are not as bad as Dan Brown, but they could definitely use some help in some areas. Given that people have already contradicted the information about her being formally trained as a writer, I don't see any problem with her writing anymore. If I wrote a book, I'm sure people would have more complaints than about JK's books. And I have loved every one of the HP books, so I'm not trying to look down on her.

My point, and I don't know if I'm getting it across, is simply that if kids are reading books - any books - that's a victory.

I agree. What is sad though, is that I fear that kids will be so entertained by the HP books so much due to how engaging and imaginative that they are (because let's admit it here, she created an entire world with politics, culture, and society from essentially only her own imagination and that is totally impressive), that the next books they take on may not been as good and then they'll lose interest again. I hope more contemporary children's authors will write these kinds of books. I mean, I loved Eragon also (though the movie was not so great). As long as the spark can ignite and stay lit, that will be the great thing there.


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Re: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - the SPOILER thread!
« Reply #109 on: July 28, 2007, 03:47:10 AM »
I teach second grade and I've read both classics (such as The Secret Garden) to them. They can only take the classics in small doses though and prefer the more humourous ones. I actually made them give The Secret Garden a few chapters before writing it off, and by the end most of the kids loved it! But they were ready for the more lighthearted Pippi Longstocking that I read to them next. I try to read aloud books that they wouldn't normally pick up on their own.

Someday, please don't take this as a criticism, but most children, and I'd say more than half of adults look more for entertainment value in books they read than the quality of the prose. I like to read a classic now and then, but usually when I read it's an escape from the real world and I like to be able to get immersed in the characters and story. For every book I read analytically, I read two or three just for fun. Kids are the same way. I teach my kids how to read for meaning and understanding, how to analyze the author's purpose and the plot. However highly regarded the author's work is, when it comes right down to it, kids just want to be entertained.

It's the nature of kids books and movies to have those "mean" teachers and parents and the kids save the world. It's playing into kids' fantasies and desires to have some more independence and have their feelings validated. They know it's not real. I've never had a child treat me poorly because they read about it in a book, it's what they're shown out in society that has affected their behaviors.

Kids definitely need to be exposed to great literature at appropriate ages, but reading is supposed to be fun. I say if it gets them reading, let them have the brain candy. There is plenty of time for them to get into the classics.  ;)

ETA: Yes, I have allowed comic books in my classroom as reading books for reluctant readers. Get them hooked, then expand!


Re: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - the SPOILER thread!
« Reply #110 on: July 28, 2007, 09:07:22 AM »



I agree. What is sad though, is that I fear that kids will be so entertained by the HP books so much due to how engaging and imaginative that they are (because let's admit it here, she created an entire world with politics, culture, and society from essentially only her own imagination and that is totally impressive), that the next books they take on may not been as good and then they'll lose interest again. I hope more contemporary children's authors will write these kinds of books. I mean, I loved Eragon also (though the movie was not so great). As long as the spark can ignite and stay lit, that will be the great thing there.

But this hasn't happened has it?  Harry Potter books have been around for more than ten years.  My kids have been reading them since the first one, which a friend of ours forced me to buy because her kids loved it at the time.  The kids that started reading Harry Potter when they were 8 or 9 are now in their late teens and early twenties.  And if anything, they are a generation of readers. 

In my experience, Harry Potter didn't turn children off reading, it turned them onto it.  My two teenagers are still great readers.  The middle one is more into fantasy, the older one took Camus as her holiday reading. 


The entire world of children's publishing and children's reading has changed drastically in the last ten years.  Before Harry Potter, the children's departments in bookshops and libraries were DREADFUL.  It was pretty much Goosebumps or Roald Dahl and that was it.  You had to really search and trawl through Amazon to find good books.   Harry Potter has changed all that. Publishers are now publishing good children's fiction.  Talented writers are writing it.

And I've just got to say that as much as I loved the Hardy boys and my oldest went through a Nancy Drew phase at about 13, they are not great works of literature.  They're not even that well written.  Instead I find them very formulatic and almost factory written at times.


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Re: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - the SPOILER thread!
« Reply #111 on: July 28, 2007, 11:18:17 AM »
What is sad though, is that I fear that kids will be so entertained by the HP books so much due to how engaging and imaginative that they are (because let's admit it here, she created an entire world with politics, culture, and society from essentially only her own imagination and that is totally impressive), that the next books they take on may not been as good and then they'll lose interest again. I hope more contemporary children's authors will write these kinds of books. I mean, I loved Eragon also (though the movie was not so great). As long as the spark can ignite and stay lit, that will be the great thing there.


Ok, let me get this straight. This has gone from complaints about how bad HP is comparatively (steals from others (which I think in this case is usually called 'allusion' and is not a bad thing), isn't literature, yada yada), to fears of how it is so good nothing that follows will live up to it?

Harry Potter opens doors, it doesn't close them.

Rest assured, there are thousands and thousands more good books of all types just waiting to be read.

As a friend of mine once said, "I keep trying to read all these great books that should be read but the bastards keep on writing more".



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Re: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - the SPOILER thread!
« Reply #112 on: July 28, 2007, 11:31:49 AM »
I love graphic novels and as I librarian, I kept them in my library and bought many more.  Most kids love Captain Underpants as well and I have no issues with that being in my library either.  Goosebumps?  Got 'em.  Bobsy Twins (shudder), yup. 

Anything else that kids (or adults) want, check.  This was a big arguement in my classes, but who I am to judge what anyone gets from any book.

If you feel like you have obtained some some enlightenment in your life due to V.C. Andrews then I am happy for you.  As long as I don't have to read your westerns. Of course the classics are there too, but as for Dickens, he was a publishing pheom just like J.K. in his time. 

I figure if a book doesn't catch me pretty quickly, out it goes.  Life is too short to be slogging through any book, classic or modern, that I don't like.  Besides, who knows what people will decide is a classic in 100 years. 


Re: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - the SPOILER thread!
« Reply #113 on: July 28, 2007, 08:27:30 PM »
You know, I typed out this long reply, but I'd just rather not even deal with it. I'm not a book snob, you've all totally taken what I've said and done with it what you wanted, and I'm not about to contradict what you think my opinions are.

Can we get back on topic now?
« Last Edit: July 28, 2007, 08:39:55 PM by SomedayInTheUK »


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Re: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - the SPOILER thread!
« Reply #114 on: July 28, 2007, 08:53:50 PM »

Can we get back on topic now?

Yes please!

I was thinking of two things today:  Firstly, did anyone else deep down want Harry to go on and be with his parents/Sirius/Lupin/etc.  Don't know why, but I did.  Secondly, what's the deal with the unforgivable curses?   Are they really unforgivable?  Good guys were using them in this book!  E.g. Molly used the Avada Kedavara against Bellatrix. Maybe it's just unforgivable to use them against an innocent person? 
I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I don't know the answer.



Re: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - the SPOILER thread!
« Reply #115 on: July 28, 2007, 09:01:16 PM »
Yes please!

I was thinking of two things today:  Firstly, did anyone else deep down want Harry to go on and be with his parents/Sirius/Lupin/etc.  Don't know why, but I did.  Secondly, what's the deal with the unforgivable curses?   Are they really unforgivable?  Good guys were using them in this book!  E.g. Molly used the Avada Kedavara against Bellatrix. Maybe it's just unforgivable to use them against an innocent person? 

In regards to the bits about Harry going on, I actually just figured that his family wouldn't have wanted him to give up his life to be dead at that moment when he could go on, live his entire life, and still join them in the end anyway. This is, of course, according to the book since I don't believe in the afterlife myself.

The unforgivable thing was weird. Maybe it's like in real life when it's illegal to murder but in times of war it's okay to shoot and kill as many bad guys as you'd like? Either way it's murder, but I think our society sees murder itself as killing an innocent and killing enemies as killing the bad guy and therefore okay. What do you think?


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Re: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - the SPOILER thread!
« Reply #116 on: July 28, 2007, 09:09:41 PM »
I suppose it could be as well that Molly was just plain pissed off after the murder of her son.  In another situation she might have tried to disarm Bellatrix, but I doubt it myself.  Azkaban had already let her escape once.  Dangerous woman, Lestrange.  I did wonder how Harry was going to kill Voldemort, though.  I don't think he had it in him to kill.  I guess it's poetic justice that in the end Voldemort's disregard for life was the end of him.
I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I don't know the answer.



Re: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - the SPOILER thread!
« Reply #117 on: July 28, 2007, 09:20:49 PM »
I suppose it could be as well that Molly was just plain pissed off after the murder of her son.  In another situation she might have tried to disarm Bellatrix, but I doubt it myself.  Azkaban had already let her escape once.  Dangerous woman, Lestrange.  I did wonder how Harry was going to kill Voldemort, though.  I don't think he had it in him to kill.  I guess it's poetic justice that in the end Voldemort's disregard for life was the end of him.

You're probably right on that! I think any mother encountering her son's murderer would be hard pressed not to react so forcefully.

I wondered about that too. So many people debated over the whole wands crossing and Harry overpowering him with love, etc, that I didn't really know how he'd do it exactly in the end. The way Voldemort died was sort of a classic example of a "moral of the story" in conjunction with "good always wins over evil" defeat, but not in a bad way I think.

Oh, I think I realized why I don't like the whole Harry/Ginny pairing. Isn't Lily a redhead? And if Harry looks so much like his father, isn't that kind of... uh... like Harry trying to date his mom? I don't know... I think that's why it gives me a bit of the willies.


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Re: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - the SPOILER thread!
« Reply #118 on: July 30, 2007, 12:00:17 AM »
I had a part of me that wanted Harry to be with his family, but I more wanted him to survive.

I thought that about the unforgiveable curses, but chalked it up to being a war or self-defense too.

As for Ginny being too much like Harry's mom, they do say that women tend to go for men who remind them of their fathers and men tend to go for women that remind them of their mothers. I don't see anything sick with that, it's natural. I think the reasoning behind that is it brings a sense of comfort and familiarity.


Re: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - the SPOILER thread!
« Reply #119 on: July 30, 2007, 05:47:23 AM »
As for Ginny being too much like Harry's mom, they do say that women tend to go for men who remind them of their fathers and men tend to go for women that remind them of their mothers. I don't see anything sick with that, it's natural. I think the reasoning behind that is it brings a sense of comfort and familiarity.

I know what you mean on that, but it still gives me the willies! I wouldn't want to marry a guy that was like my dad or my stepdad. I know everyone is not the same though.


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