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Opinions on the Redwall books by Brian Jacques please


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Dss finished Redwall and are now reading Martin the Warrior. I haven't read the series, but noticed that some of the characters occasionally curse. Dh and I have talked this over with dss and are allowing them to read the books with the understanding that the cursing is wrong and should not be copied.

 

Is there anything else I should be alerted to? Dss plan to read all the books in the series. Are any of them inappropriate for nine year olds? TIA.

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I can remember nothing other than possibly mild cursing (mild enough that it doesn't stick out in my mind). They do fight wars, and the action is quite vividly described. We've listened to the books on tape (well done btw), my husband has read them aloud for bedtime stories, etc for the last couple of years for our 8yo daughter and she has thoroughly enjoyed them. They do tend to get a bit formulaic after a while, but that's hardly surprising.

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My 8 yo boys have listened to as many as they could find at the library and are now almost finished reading their way through the whole series. My boys tend to be sensitive to violence and "scary" books/images (parts of Star Wars, Indiana Jones...), but they've enjoyed the Redwall books.

 

I listened to parts of a few of them in the car and they seemed ok to me.

 

yvonne

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Well, LOL, I'm not sure I'd characterize the "cursing" as occasional, if by that you mean all the name calling. I got to the point after about 8 or 9 books where I just couldn't take all the name calling any more. My older son loved these when he was about 11 or 12. Great swashbuckling boybarian stuff. But there *is* a lot of name calling!

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I'm usually the lone ranger on this one. I bought and read the first one and thought it was dreadful. Not all that well written, some language that even I, who love LOTR, found gruesome. I tossed it or I'd go look those up for you.

 

I didn't like Inkheart, either, so there you have it. :-)

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I've been thinking a lot about cursing lately since I have 2 boys, 12 & 14, who are exposed to cursing on their baseball teams. I think the more exposure, the more temptation. The more you hear it, the more numb you become to it. Our culture has become so numb to it that I even hear little kids cursing with their parents present and they don't even flinch. This is a step in the wrong direction, I think.

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When the books first hit the market, we bought the first one for the older boys. I reacted negatively to what I considered violence and mild foul-mouthing. With some reluctance, I let the boys continue reading the books. The series becomes formulaic (to borrow another poster's word) and most uninspired as one works through the conga line of series' volumes. Even my boys noticed that for themselves ! So we stopped buying them after the first dozen, I think it was.

 

Next son down discovered the books, back, also, around age 8 or 9 (just like his older brothers), and loves them. Over time he also acquired the DVD cartoon versions, which he likes very much.

 

For me, the Redwall books are not interesting to me, and are not fabulous reading -- but they are vastly superior, even in generalized "moral content" to so much of the rest of the bookstore's offerings, I am comfortable letting children read them. (I dare not list examples of books I reject, because reading matter is subjective, and we here all differ markedly in what we like and/or tolerate.)

 

P.S. All of my children intensely dislike "real life" use of profanity and vulgar speech. They comment on it when they hear it used. So I can note, in passing, that Redwall did not exert any negative influence on their speech ! :)

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I've been thinking a lot about cursing lately since I have 2 boys, 12 & 14, who are exposed to cursing on their baseball teams. I think the more exposure, the more temptation. The more you hear it, the more numb you become to it. Our culture has become so numb to it that I even hear little kids cursing with their parents present and they don't even flinch. This is a step in the wrong direction, I think.

 

 

While I agree that bad language is everywhere, the most effective way to stop a small child from cursing is to simply state that it's not acceptible and thenceforth to ignore it. Especially in preschoolers, it's for attention, and even negative attention feeds it.

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