Reading a chapter or part of one each night is fast becoming a very popular nightly ritual; most nights we read some of a chapter book and then A and I head to her room for a quick picture book before turning out the light.  (I don’t want her to miss out on the joy of reading picture books just because her big sister is a chapter book junkie.) Here are a few samples of what we’ve read to the kids lately.

Danny Champion of the World — by Roald Dahl. What would it be like to live in a little caravan with the best Dad ever? This is a quaint children’s novel about one boy and his dad, and the adventures they have in their little town. I love how Roald Dahl’s stories have a raw honesty to them.  It is so outside of our current “sanitized readings” that one gets nowaday.  His stories don’t hide the dark sides of life.

In spite of my enthusiasm for children’s books from other eras, D and I both have a hard time reading bits of stories to our kids that depict severe punishment.  I sometimes have  to soften stories a little, though I am loathe to do it.

In Danny, there is a description of the boy being hit very severely by his teacher.  I included this part because I felt like it made for interesting reading and it makes you feel in awe of  the boy’s dad, who wants to go beat the living daylights out of the teacher. That’s just one anecdote in the story, not a main plot point or anything. Like in James and the Giant Peach: it’s twisted and dark how James’ parents get killed by a rampaging rhino escaped from London Zoo. And his awful aunts get killed when the peach rolls over them and flattens them. Twisted ! Dark! Funny!  Not this watered down crap you see now a days, where hardly anything happens. And yet there’s an other worldliness to much of it, so it’s not horrific–  unlike watching the evening news (something which I avoid).

Now we’re working our way through Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder.  I could not bring myself to read the words on the page where it said that Laura’s Pa got the strap from the wall and whipped her with it (this was punishment for Laura having slapped her sister in the face).  I just said something like, “So Laura’s Pa had to spank her.” Less vivid, less upsetting that way, and it didn’t interfere with the plot of the book.

I confess I also played down the brown hair / blond hair jealousy subplot. My daughters, we noticed, have the same hair as Mary and Laura in the book! The big one with blond, the little one kind of mousy brown.  I did NOT want to introduce into my little one’s mind the idea that blond hair is prettier than brown! Instead of reading that Mary had beautiful golden curls, while Laura had plain, ugly brown hair, I said that Laura had beautiful brown curls. This played out poorly with the plot, but I felt it was worth it.

I love Little House for its descriptions of life in a much simpler time, when there was much physical work to be done, and how little the children had and yet how happy they were. It’s something I want my kids to think about as we prepare for Havemoreakah and Consumermas, the big winter holidays. What if I just get them a pig’s bladder and a rag doll, and get rid of everything else in the house. Then they could really be happy!

I’ve also read them the first two books of the Harry Potter series.  These are fun, but so much less rich than these older books that I just discussed. I wonder how well the Potter series will read, in a hundred years?