Cross over

First impression

Our last week’s theme was crossover and I have read three of the books on the list, so I will talk a bit about all three because I cannot choose (having finished my blog now, it might be a tiny bit long, so sit back and enjoy..).

I read His Dark Materials about four years ago, my sister gave it to me and I loved it! I just could not stop reading. I really enjoyed trying to understand all the physics, but what really got me was the magic, the love, the idea of always having your daemon next to you, to never be alone. That thought to me is so beautiful. When Lyra had to leave her daemon behind, I felt so sad that I cried, I felt her pain. I read all the books in no time and consider them some of the most beautiful books I have read!

I got The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas from my cousin. I had to get used to the childish way it was written, but after that I really enjoyed reading it. The fact that you know what is going on and the protagonist does not, makes it bitter-sweet. It is sad, but it is good to see the innocence and good in children. The last part where the Bruno and his friend walk into the room hand in hand, and he says that nothing in the world would have persuaded him to let it go, really gave me goosebumps.

The other book I read, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, I got from a friend. One of my students had his presentation about the book and it did not really appeal to me. But if somebody goes through the trouble of finding me a book, I will go to the trouble of reading it and I am glad I did. It is different from other books, because of the way it is written. Sometimes it was a bit slow and repetitive, but I thought it was very interesting to look inside Christopher’s head and to be taken along in his way of thinking and to see and understand his logic and his fears.

All three books had passages in it that really shocked me or made me very sad, that is why I first wondered whether the books were even suitable for children. But after talking about it in class and looking up information for this blog,  I am sure children will love these books as much as I did, because they experience the stories in a different way.

Class discussion:

When I was young I also read my mom’s book and enjoyed them very much, also lots of adults can really appreciate youth literature as well. There never was a term to describe books that appeal to children and adults at the same time, but since Harry Potter there is ‘cross over’. Harry Potter was the first book which had two different covers, one for children and one for adults. We discussed why grown-ups like these books so much, is it because the general intellect is declining? Or is it because church is less and less popular and people try to find the magic in another way? Or maybe we are all just too busy and stressed in our normal lives that we just want to be able to relax and read easy books. There might be truth in all these statements, but to the people who are reading, it does not matter.

The primary power of a cross over novel is the quality of the story-telling. In any case it should be good children’s literature, this way the author will have to stay true to the story line and entertain the reader. The characters, setting and the plot lines should captivate the reader: child or adult. And although there is (a lot of) violence and emotional conflicts, there is a much broader sense of friendship that ties the story together (WCPL, 2013). This is clear in all books, but to me most obviously in His Dark Materials. The characters, the whole setting and plot hook you, from the way the landscape is described, the lovely daemons, to the talking polar bears. The violence and the cruelties are horrific and very painful but on the other side you see the tight friendship between Lyra and Will and the bond, love and care between the children and their daemons.

We also discussed in class that a lot of children wish or think that their parents are not their real parents. This happens more or less in all three stories (and coincidentally in all these three stories it is the child against his or her father), but mostly in The Curious Case and His Dark Materials. This makes sense as Erikson describes this inner urge of ‘rebelling against parents’ in the fifth stage of Identity vs. Role Confusion, when children are between twelve and eighteen years old (thiememeulenhof, n.d.). The protagonists in these two books are respectively twelve and fifteen and so fit into this stage. Bruno, the main character of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is nine and still in stage four, where he is ready to start sharing responsibility and striving to make plans and build up something with other kids (thiememeulenhof, n.d.). Bruno starts to have these feelings, but you sometimes see that he is not completely ready to take the responsibility yet (e.g. the scene with Shmuel in the kitchen, or eating the food meant for Shmuel). Because he is not in stage five yet, he is not rebelling that obviously against his parents, although he does disobey them by going to the fence which he was not allowed and we eventually know that he dies ‘because of his father’.

Age suitability/theory:

Looking at the different stages described above I would recommend The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas to children from nine and up and adults of course. I have looked on a couple of websites and it seems that children get education on WWII from about the age of 10-11 (eureka, n.d.)(onderwijs, n.d.). Therefore the young children will in my opinion not grasp the real awfulness of what is going on, but they will understand Bruno’s feelings of wanting to go out and explore and secretly meeting with his new friend. Adults and older children on the other hand will know what is going on and will feel the sadness and danger throughout the whole book.

The Curious Case tells us about a fifteen year old, but because he is autistic he sometimes comes across as younger, that is why I believe that it would be a suitable book for children from the age of eight and up. Although it was written for adults, children actually love it. The writer’s son has read it three times now and he is twelve and he states that he had a different experience every time he read it. He realized things about Christopher’s point of view, he took it on face value at first then he started seeing other point of views which contradicted with his and it got more and more sophisticated (the guardian podcast, 2013). This is what we discussed in class as well, young children do not care when other children are different, they just accept them the way they are. As they grow older, they start to see the differences and they will form an opinion about it. So at every age they will have a different experience reading the book. For adults it is absolutely interesting to look inside Christopher’s head, to see how he forms certain ideas and why he acts in a particular way, they might even be able to connect with him sometimes (the guardian, 2013).

The author did not have a specific target group in his mind when writing His Dark Materials, when thinking of his audience he thinks of a group that includes adults, children, male, female, the old, middle-aged and the young, everyone who can read actually (Philip Pullman, n.d.). That is why I would recommend this book from the age of nine and up. Lyra is twelve so she still has the innocence of children in stage four. Children can definitely identify with her, with her quest to find her father, with her love for her daemon and her caring for her best friend. Adults will think about the physics and could recognize other themes and subjects in the book, a few of them are: the Inquisition, the Fall and Temptation, good and evil and another look on some Christian convictions (Philip Pullman, n.d.) .

Epilogue:

When I heard at the start of this block that we had to read a book a week I was happy that I had already read a lot of them (and I still am, because it is a lot to do), but having finished this course I know I haven’t nearly read one tenth of all of the books I want to read. Looking on websites, searching for literature and insides on the books, themes and theory, I came across more titles I want to read and more authors who have written even more books I need to read. I saved them all in my phone not knowing where to start. I also read some of the books my teammates read for the bookfair, but most of them have sequels and I do not know which book to read first now. I really enjoyed this block, the class discussions were very interesting and having to read books is the best homework you can get. Even though I did not like writing the blogs, looking up information for them did make me alter my thoughts about the book sometimes (Catcher in the Rey for example).

I do look at stories in a different way now. I realize that when I recommend books to my students now I give them different reasons to read it to what I used to do and I might even be more passionate about it than I already was...

Sources:

Eureka. Retrieved November 6^th from http://eureka.inos.nl/?q=node/51

The Guardian. Stage. Retrieved November 6^th from 

http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2013/apr/28/curious-incident-olivier-awards

The Guardian. Podcast. Retrieved November 6^th from http://www.theguardian.com/books/audio/2013/may/03/mark-haddon-curious-incident-podcast?popup=true

Ga het na Onderwijs. Op bezoek. Retrieved November 6^th from http://onderwijs.gahetna.nl/op-bezoek

Thieme Meulenhoff. Retrieved November 6^th from http://tm.thiememeulenhoff.nl/assets/documentenservice_zen/hjk/archief/2002/10_juni_2002/jrg29-juni2002-vos-vertrouwenkrijgeninjezelfendewereld-erikeriksonhetfundamenteelvertrouwenvoordeidentiteitsontwikkeling.pdf

Washington Centerville Public Library. Retrieved November 6^th from http://wcplfineprint.blogspot.nl/2010/11/crossover-literature-its-ok-to-read.html