I’m reading all these posts and I’m thinking back to what I read when I was a kid, because I don’t have any kids now and I’m kind of out of touch with current children’s books. One of the first things I remember reading, although I know it couldn’t have been the first thing I read, was The Hobbit. And shortly after that I read the Lord of the Rings. And yes, that was around the age of 5 for The Hobbit and I think I was a bit older for the Lord of the Rings, maybe seven or eight. I love that sort of stuff and every once in awhile I start the psychoanalyze myself about why I loved it so much. Did I love fantasy because although my home life was decent, I often felt like I wanted to escape? I don’t know.
Anyway, I remember the reading the whole Little House in the Prairie series, and I really didn’t enjoy them. I’ve always liked the ideal of living out in the wilderness and having to fend for yourselves, etc. But then I was remembering that they didn’t always portray Native Americans very well. There wasn’t any out and out racism, but they were rarely portrayed positively.
And as I read more advanced things, I came to love stories about Indian tribes and about how they lived, and about people who got taken in by them because they were found when they were injured or something, and then they came to love that lifestyle and ended up never going back to their old way of life.
Like someone above said, I worry more that kids aren’t reading today. I read a study once about how much lower our children’s spans of attention are because they’re not reading nearly as much as they are watching TV or being on the computer. And that was years ago so I can’t imagine how much worse it’s gotten. Also reading really helps develop a child’s imagination. When you see everything on the screen, there’s not really much use for your imagination, but when you’re reading a book, you’re having the picture things for yourself and trying to figure out how the story is going to end up.
Overall, I think we need to be very careful not to over censor books from the past. There are definitely some that should be, but I think if we censor too much, then you lose some of the flavor from back in the day. I think if minor changes can be made sometimes, like the one mentioned for Pippi Longstocking, then that is a good thing.