clueless
New Member
My youngest daughter (11) has usually two books on the go: she reads one herself and I read another one to her. Of course I started reading to her before she learned to read and have continued because, although she is a very good reader, she likes the way I read to her, using different voices for each character (I hate to read books with lots of characters for that reason).
Recently she was reading Kidnapped and I decided to read to her The City of the Beasts by Isabel Allende. We lived in Spain for 3 years and she used to speak Spanish and be able to read it at the time, but she is losing it. I chose that book thinking that it might encourage her to keep up her Spanish. The reason to choose this particular book was that I did not know any Spanish children’s authors and that book was reviewed in English newspapers.
Result: She hated the book. I hated the book. I read half of it and still don’t know why we went so far. This book is everything a fiction book, specially a children’s one, should not be. The narrator spends most of the time preaching against the Amazon rainforest and its people. A good – well written – book would make readers realise this, make them see rather than telling them, speak more through the characters and the story itself and less through the narrator, avoiding heavy interludes that make the story progress very slowly. One of the characters has a sudden, implausible change of personality and opinions, etc. Language was not good either, although you will not notice if you read a translation.
By contrast, she loves Kidnapped, although she struggled a little bit with some words at the beginning, and it has made her ask me lots of questions about Scottish and UK history.
Recently she was reading Kidnapped and I decided to read to her The City of the Beasts by Isabel Allende. We lived in Spain for 3 years and she used to speak Spanish and be able to read it at the time, but she is losing it. I chose that book thinking that it might encourage her to keep up her Spanish. The reason to choose this particular book was that I did not know any Spanish children’s authors and that book was reviewed in English newspapers.
Result: She hated the book. I hated the book. I read half of it and still don’t know why we went so far. This book is everything a fiction book, specially a children’s one, should not be. The narrator spends most of the time preaching against the Amazon rainforest and its people. A good – well written – book would make readers realise this, make them see rather than telling them, speak more through the characters and the story itself and less through the narrator, avoiding heavy interludes that make the story progress very slowly. One of the characters has a sudden, implausible change of personality and opinions, etc. Language was not good either, although you will not notice if you read a translation.
By contrast, she loves Kidnapped, although she struggled a little bit with some words at the beginning, and it has made her ask me lots of questions about Scottish and UK history.
