CAMom Posted December 14, 2009 Share Posted December 14, 2009 Hi Everyone, My 13yo dd and I need your help. She's writing a paper on whether or not fiction is worth reading from a Chrsitian perspective. We're looking for an example of a fictional character who loves to read fiction. We were thinking of Anne Shirley, but then wondered if we were confusing her tendency to daydream with thinking she loved books. I'm sure there are examples out there but we're drawing a blank. Help please? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thea Posted December 14, 2009 Share Posted December 14, 2009 Meggie in Inkheart (Funke) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daisy Posted December 14, 2009 Share Posted December 14, 2009 Meggie and her father and her aunt in Inkheart. That's all that jumps into my head right now but that's because DD is reading Inkspell right now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aggieamy Posted December 14, 2009 Share Posted December 14, 2009 This is kind of lame but the Disney version of Belle from Beauty and the Beast loved to read fiction. When the beast wanted to impress her he gave her a library. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris in VA Posted December 14, 2009 Share Posted December 14, 2009 Yes, Anne Shirley loved to read! Esp poetry and anything "heroic!" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FairProspects Posted December 14, 2009 Share Posted December 14, 2009 Well, there's Catherine Morland in Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey. Although, in Catherine's case, it is a love of novels that causes problems when her overactive imagination jumps to conclusions and nearly costs her a beau. I'm not sure if that is the type of example you are looking for, but the book does explore the question "Is it possible to read too many novels?" :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jean in Newcastle Posted December 14, 2009 Share Posted December 14, 2009 Jo in "Little Women"? I think they all liked to read. And then they used that love to make their plays. And then of course Jo used it to start her own writing career. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smrtmama Posted December 14, 2009 Share Posted December 14, 2009 Hermione Granger. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Annie Posted December 14, 2009 Share Posted December 14, 2009 Anne Shirley was my first thought, but I think Jo would also be a good idea. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carol in Cal. Posted December 14, 2009 Share Posted December 14, 2009 For a counterexample, there is Rose in Rose in Bloom, also by LMA, who reads French novels to her detriment. She later embarks on a self-improvement plan by reading essays by then-current transcendentalist authors--the latest, most up to day style of ruminations on virtues. The kids in Half Magic all love to read. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dangermom Posted December 14, 2009 Share Posted December 14, 2009 You might like this from Northanger Abbey: ... and if a rainy morning deprived (Catherine and Isabella) of other enjoyments, they were still resolute in meeting in defiance of wet and dirt, and shut themselves up, to read novels together. Yes, novels; --for I will not adopt that ungenerous and impolitic custom so common with novel writers, of degrading by their contemptuous censure the very performances, to the number of which they are themselves adding--joining with their greatest enemies in bestowing the harshest epithets on such works, and scarcely ever permitting them to be read by their own heroine, who, if she accidentally take up a novel, is sure to turn over its insipid pages with disgust. Alas! if the heroine of one novel is not patronized by the heroine of another, from whom can she expect protection and regard? I cannot approve of it. Let us leave it to the Reviewers to abuse such effusions of fancy at their leisure, and over every new novel to talk in threadbare strains of the trash with which the press now groans. Let us not desert one another; we are an injured body. Although our productions have afforded more extensive and unaffected pleasure than those of any other literary corporation in the world, no species of composition has been so much decried. From pride, ignorance, or fashion, our foes are almost as many as our readers. And while the abilities of the nine hundredth abridger of the History of England, or of the man who collects and publishes in a volume some dozen lines of Milton, Pope, and Prior, with a paper from the Spectator, and a chapter from Sterne, are eulogized by a thousand pens, -- there seems almost a general wish of decrying the capacity and undervaluing the labour of the novelist, and of slighting the performances which have only genius, wit, and taste to recommend them. 'I am no novel reader -- I seldom look into novels -- Do not imagine that I often read novels -- It is really very well for a novel.' -- Such is the common cant. -- 'And what are you reading, Miss ---?' 'Oh! it is only a novel!' replies the young lady; while she lays down her book with affected indifference, or momentary shame. -- 'It is only Cecilia, or Camilla, or Belinda'' or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour are conveyed to the world in the best chosen language. Now, had the same young lady been engaged with a volume of the Spectator, instead of such a work, how proudly would she have produced the book, and told its name; though the chances must be against her being occupied by any part of that voluminous publication, of which either the matter or manner would not disgust a young person of taste: the substance of its papers so often consisting in the statement of improbable circumstances, unnatural characters, and topics of conversation, which no longer concern any one living; and their language, too, frequently so coarse as to give no very favourable idea of the age that could endure it. Also, another L. M. Montgomery heroine, Emily of New Moon, loves to read. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tutor Posted December 14, 2009 Share Posted December 14, 2009 (edited) Scout Finch (To Kill A Mockingbird) Despereaux (The Tale of Despereaux) Klaus Baudelaire (Series of Unfortunate Events) Also, Jane Austen address the purpose/ value of fiction near the beginning of Northanger Abby. Edited December 14, 2009 by Tutor Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CAMom Posted December 14, 2009 Author Share Posted December 14, 2009 Thank you! Thank you for all the wonderful ideas and such quick help!:grouphug: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caitilin Posted December 14, 2009 Share Posted December 14, 2009 Francie, from A Tree Grows In Brooklyn.:) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sebastian (a lady) Posted December 14, 2009 Share Posted December 14, 2009 Hi Everyone, My 13yo dd and I need your help. She's writing a paper on whether or not fiction is worth reading from a Chrsitian perspective. We're looking for an example of a fictional character who loves to read fiction. We were thinking of Anne Shirley, but then wondered if we were confusing her tendency to daydream with thinking she loved books. I'm sure there are examples out there but we're drawing a blank. Help please? Betsy in the Betsy Tacy books (there is a lovely description of her first visit to a Carnegie library in I think book 4). The girls in Little House on the Prairie love to read. In the First Four Years, a neighbor brings a sack of Waverly novels to a pregnant Laura. IMHO, fiction can be a way of conveying deep truths. A parable is nothing more than a short piece of fiction to make a point. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Melinda in VT Posted December 14, 2009 Share Posted December 14, 2009 Betsy from the Betsy-Tacey books. The girls from the All of a Kind Family books. (Doesn't the first book open with a chapter on borrowing books from the library?) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CAMom Posted December 14, 2009 Author Share Posted December 14, 2009 IMHO, fiction can be a way of conveying deep truths. A parable is nothing more than a short piece of fiction to make a point. Absolutely! :iagree: My dd is looking forward to working on this assignment as she's not only a reader of fiction but a writer of the same. In fact, she successfully completed the NaNoWriMo challenge of 50,000 in November.:) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dangermom Posted December 14, 2009 Share Posted December 14, 2009 (edited) Betsy from the Betsy-Tacey books.The girls from the All of a Kind Family books. (Doesn't the first book open with a chapter on borrowing books from the library?) Yes, I think it does! I love how that chapter conveys how precious books are to the girls. The photo here shows children waiting to get into the NYPL branch on the lower East Side, and reminds me of that book. :) Edited December 14, 2009 by dangermom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carol in Cal. Posted December 14, 2009 Share Posted December 14, 2009 in the picture book, "Sophia and Sammie's Library Sleepover." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cougarmom4 Posted December 14, 2009 Share Posted December 14, 2009 Matilda? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndyJoy Posted December 14, 2009 Share Posted December 14, 2009 Sara in A Little Princess. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Claire in NM Posted December 14, 2009 Share Posted December 14, 2009 Some of these mention works by Milton. Claire in NM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CactusPair Posted December 14, 2009 Share Posted December 14, 2009 Betsy in Understood Betsy. Maggie in Mill on the Floss. Fern in Charlotte's Web??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nmoira Posted December 14, 2009 Share Posted December 14, 2009 Roald Dahl's Matilda The Ink Drinker and sequels (a bit of a twist on the theme) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erica in PA Posted December 14, 2009 Share Posted December 14, 2009 Francie, from A Tree Grows In Brooklyn.:) This is the one I was going to suggest. I just reread the chapter today where Francie talks about going to the library and reading every book they have, in alphabetical order, just for the love of it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris in VA Posted December 14, 2009 Share Posted December 14, 2009 Sara in A Little Princess. Oh, how could I ever forget Sara Crewe! It was my favorite book in 3-6 grade! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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