Classics R Good

[primsong]

Just thinking on how pleased I am that my three teens are reading at this time
Pride and Prejudice, (with plans for Sense and Sensibility)
The Three Musketeers (he just finished the Count of Monte Cristo), and
The Scarlet Pimpernel (she's going for 'The Elusive Pimpernel' next)

There's something that just fluffs my feathers about that. I grew up with an emphasis on books being classics 'for a reason' and usually being well worth a read, and they have rarely been disappointments.

A boy at my son's school sniffed at Musketeers and told him if he wanted to read a "real hard book" he should be reading Twilight - proof being when he held up his copy it was 'thicker' than Dumas' masterpiece. Heh. Of course, the effort to point out little details like size of type and width of margins was pushed aside. Oh well. I was pleased to find that class starting in on Kipling's Captains Courageous next - it has some gnarly, intense moments in it but I think those boys might enjoy a taste of a good, gritty sea story if they've been reading vampire fluff.

Comments

[primsong.livejournal.com]

It does make one wince a bit, doesn't it? Especially when so many movie adaptations are anything but true to their original works.

Yeah... some while back one of my kids noted the only thing she knew about Jules Verne were the references to him in Back to the Future - thankfully, this made her go read three of his books and now she just loves him, but how sad for those who stop there.