Tuesday, January 31, 2006

"Children Should Read Classics"

Children should be made to read classic literature by Dickens, Shakespeare and Joyce, according to authors such as JK Rowling and Philip Pullman. See the full story, including Rowling's Top 10 reading list on BBC.com.

Can't much argue with them there. Wolfie, Xavier and I just finished reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. My biggest complaint was a stylistic one. Three times Twain wrote a scene right up to a climax, left a cliffhanger at the end of the chapter, then told us what happened next in flashback instead of showing it the way he'd built up to it. You can't go from "a shot rang out!" to "Huck found out later that..." without letting your readers down some.

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