My oldest son's 4th grade class was assigned to read Things not Seen. He had been reading it for several weeks. We knew about this because part of our weekly family home evening routine includes a book report. We go around the room and each person has 30 seconds to tell the family about what books they are reading. This is supposed to encourage literacy and a love for reading. Well his teacher gives the class a few minutes in class to read each day. He apparently thought that was sufficient so he hadn't brought the book home to read like the rest of the class. He was way behind. Well our little chat with his teacher during parent teacher confrences motivated him to spend several hours reading this weekend. I decided to read the book too. So one evening I read it. I enjoyed it. It is about a 15 year old boy who wakes up invisible. His clothes show up on this invisible body which is determental in keeping people from seeing him, so he runs around trying to solve the mystery of his invisiblenss in the buff. While going naked is a pretty logical thing for someone in this situation to do I am not sure the author needs to dwell on it and constantly remind us of his nakedness. It even gets more interesting when he meets and falls in love with a blind girl. Luckily the girl can't see his naked body. That would be a bit much for me. But she is aware of it. I am a bit naive but not so much to not recognize that this puts an interesting dimension into their relationship. What 15 year old boy could run around completely naked with his girlfriend and not be affected. And even if she can't see him I bet her imagination was working pretty well. Anyway I think I would have rated this book a little higher on the "appropriate for 10 year olds" scale if there would have been more clothes involved or at least less talk of nakedness. There was also a few words used pretty commonly that are not allowed in our house. While most of the world probably doesn't find them offensive, I do. Anyway the book was pretty interesting and fairly well written. I am just not sure I am ready for my 10 year old to read about teenagers falling in love even if it is not the main topic of the book. I wouldn't go so far as to say I would forbid him to read it (I didn't) but I just think I would have thought twice about assigning it to my 4th grade class. I hope this doesn't make me sound like a prude, I'm not really. I just don't know why he can't enjoy a good Little house, or Anne of Green Gables book. I enjoy the innocence of children - I'd like to keep them that way as long as I can.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Things Not Seen
My oldest son's 4th grade class was assigned to read Things not Seen. He had been reading it for several weeks. We knew about this because part of our weekly family home evening routine includes a book report. We go around the room and each person has 30 seconds to tell the family about what books they are reading. This is supposed to encourage literacy and a love for reading. Well his teacher gives the class a few minutes in class to read each day. He apparently thought that was sufficient so he hadn't brought the book home to read like the rest of the class. He was way behind. Well our little chat with his teacher during parent teacher confrences motivated him to spend several hours reading this weekend. I decided to read the book too. So one evening I read it. I enjoyed it. It is about a 15 year old boy who wakes up invisible. His clothes show up on this invisible body which is determental in keeping people from seeing him, so he runs around trying to solve the mystery of his invisiblenss in the buff. While going naked is a pretty logical thing for someone in this situation to do I am not sure the author needs to dwell on it and constantly remind us of his nakedness. It even gets more interesting when he meets and falls in love with a blind girl. Luckily the girl can't see his naked body. That would be a bit much for me. But she is aware of it. I am a bit naive but not so much to not recognize that this puts an interesting dimension into their relationship. What 15 year old boy could run around completely naked with his girlfriend and not be affected. And even if she can't see him I bet her imagination was working pretty well. Anyway I think I would have rated this book a little higher on the "appropriate for 10 year olds" scale if there would have been more clothes involved or at least less talk of nakedness. There was also a few words used pretty commonly that are not allowed in our house. While most of the world probably doesn't find them offensive, I do. Anyway the book was pretty interesting and fairly well written. I am just not sure I am ready for my 10 year old to read about teenagers falling in love even if it is not the main topic of the book. I wouldn't go so far as to say I would forbid him to read it (I didn't) but I just think I would have thought twice about assigning it to my 4th grade class. I hope this doesn't make me sound like a prude, I'm not really. I just don't know why he can't enjoy a good Little house, or Anne of Green Gables book. I enjoy the innocence of children - I'd like to keep them that way as long as I can.
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Especially with so many good old books out there, why do teachers feel compelled to assign newer ones like this?
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