Tag-Archive for » literature «
The New York Times had a pretty good article about the fall of Holden Caulfield and how teens today see him as whiny and unrelatable. In all honesty, it’s been a long time since I’ve read Catcher in the Rye but are we really surprised that a fifty-year-old book is starting to date itself?
A good point made at the end of the article was that when the book was written, you were either a kid or an adult. There was no middle ground. No teens or tweens or transition period. So what else was he supposed to do? Oh my, a yuppie loose in New York. Lost, I tell you!
But times have changed. Now there are whole marketing plans set out to target that mid-realm between child and adult we now call teen. There are YA books and clothes and franchises. They have that now. There are stories told directly to them, about them and are for them. It’s no wonder the book isn’t being viewed from the eyes it once was.
But I ask again, is it surprising? Yes, a classic is a classic but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t get dated. Hell, even some of the YA books out there are dated within months because the authors felt the need to make pop culture references every other paragraph. The thing is not only people but writing styles have changed drastically.
To me, a classic is only a classic because there’s still someone around that considers it such and will tout that until they die. If there’s no one left to claim it a classic, what happens? It fades away. Catcher is still a classic because a lot of the teachers still teaching grew up on that book. But what happens when today’s kids grow up and start teaching? Will they not lean away from such older classics and lean more towards classics of our time like Harry Potter? Catcherwas big then. Harry is big now. So what’s the difference?
A classic is only a classic because some highbrow with leather elbows says it is. For the life of me I can’t understand why The Dubliners is considered a classic. It can barely be understood to begin with! You know, I’m sure, 100 years ago, there were books that were considered classics that are obsolete now. Lost in time. Like the cycle won’t continue? Please. Very few books prevail after multiple generations and even then, the impact changes. It can’t be helped when people themselves are constantly changing.
On February first, the Jewish Literature for Children Western Conference was held in Los Angeles where teachers, writers and librarians gathered to discuss the Holocaust in literature from elementary school through high school. What that conference focused on was how it’s best to portray such an even to children but what I want to ask is, how young is too young?
The Holocaust is a horrible fact of human nature. The last time I deeply studied it it was for a Jewish American literature class in college and I was literally bordering on a depression by the time I had that term paper written. Can you imagine what 2 tons of hair looks like? That was one of the things the liberators found at Auschwitz. Can you even begin to picture how much hair that actually is, and then what happened to the bodies it was once attached to?
Granted children, especially of the picture book age, wouldn’t spend months at a time immersed in such information. But a picture book about the Holocaust for children just seems a little oxymoronic to me (in terms of content) . Yes, I think children should learn this history. I think it’s extraordinarily important for them to learn it but should they be exposed to those kinds of visuals at such a young age?
Let’s take Angel Girl, that notorious book that was recalled because the love story turned out to be false (although the author’s time in the concentration camp wasn’t). Many librarians don’t like that this book was recalled because it’s a means of freedom of speech and would much rather add an addendum to the book about the falsity of the love story. Others feel that it could cause others to question the reality of other books because of the fictionalization of this one. I can understand both sides but I want to add this – why can’t it be just a little bit fictionalized?
