Jump to content

Menu

Earliest age to read Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde???


Sunshine Mama
 Share

Recommended Posts

Not a "scary" or "intense" story, so that shouldn't be a problem. The only thing that might happen is that DC will miss the moral questions raised by the story... But you can read it now and just enough, and then you can always do it again in high school and dig into it with deeper discussion. ;)

 

The only reason I can think of to wait is mostly due to the elevated and old vocabulary, and Victorian complex sentence structure. But if your family has read a lot of Victorian lit. aloud and doesn't struggle with that, then probably not a problem.

 

You can preview it here -- read the first 10-12 pages and see if it fits for your family or not. :)

Edited by Lori D.
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Oh I think it could be read and enjoyed by fifth or sixth grade. But as with almost all writing that deals in broader themes and satire, the depth and color of it is more apparent to a more mature brain, more in the rhetoric stage.

 

Reading something young and rereading it older might be the best combo of all, but generally speaking the story is pretty dry in terms of language and feeling, and not gory or graphic so much as 'atmospheric'. I feel that way about Frankenstein too. Best appreciated by an older student or adult simply because the layers and nuance are so dense, but it isn't strictly a 'frightening' book in a way a young child might pick up on. It's the more subtle implications of it that are truly disturbing and unsettling :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...