Reading the "classics"

is not something everyone wants to do - nor should they be required to do so. 

Reading the classics of children's literature is often a matter of "must" rather than "want" because a book will be a "set" book in school.  Then there are the well meaning adults who still hand over "classics" as birthday and Christmas presents or school prizes. 

I can remember being given "Black Beauty". Now I know this is still a book loved by some young "hippomaniacs" and that they will still read the Pullein-Thompson sisters, Ruby Ferguson and like authors. I was never a fan of "horse stories" as we knew them in my kittenhood. I tried to read them because it was what so many others of my age were reading but I was not interested. I was not really interested in "ballet stories" either. Although I enjoyed Noel Streatfeild's books like Ballet Shoes I was not as interested in the ballet aspect as the way the three girls found a way of contributing to the family finances and how they were educated.  Even then though it all seemed a little strange I suppose. I knew it was not the way something would happen to any child of my age.  

It was this I thought of when someone mentioned that she was reading "Stig of the Dump" (Clive King) with her son - and finding it rather dull.  Stig of the Dump was considered to be something of a breakthrough book when I first read it.  It was one of those books that, a few years later, I ensured was in a school library. It is now considered to be a "classic" and still put on "set" books lists. At the time it probably was read by many children. It would have been read along with books like "The Borrowers" and then "Tom's Midnight Garden". 

They were all good books, perhaps outstanding books. The question though is, "Are they what is read now?" The answer to that  I think is that tastes have perhaps changed. Children know more about the world. Other things are being published. 

It is possible to see this looking down a list of Carnegie Medal winners. The more recent winners tend to be much darker. 

I try to read each one as it is announced but there have been some I have not enjoyed at all. I still feel that Kevin Brooks book "The Bunker Diary"  is not the sort of book I would encourage a young person to read. 

Over the years I have collected earlier children's literature - from the fifties, sixties and seventies of last century. I have made it available to local children who like to read. They can pick and choose as they please. I don't ask them to tell me what they think about the books they read although they sometimes tell me. The Whirlwind and her friends read a great many of them. The boys who live nearby read less but still read quite a number of them.  

The interesting thing is that, despite an outstandingly good library nearby which has an excellent children's section, all these children and now young people kept coming back to borrow more from me.

Yes,  I have worried about losing books I treasure but I also hear in my mind that young girl in the library as she looked up at me and said, 

    "I'm sick of AIDS and death and divorce. I just want a good adventure story."

Perhaps that is why some "classic" books are still being read?

"But Cat, you must have that one! I want to read it!" has been a wonderful thing to hear.  I have failed my young borrowers too often. 

But there are some wonderful books being written for them now...and I enjoy reading them.