S/O "Help me out here", twaddle books

[LAmom]

So, what are considered twaddle books, and are they really that harmful? I understand not wanting your kids to read "junk" (junk=twaddle?). I grew up reading Sweet Valley Twins/High, Babysitters Club, VC Andrews(!!), etc. I loved reading, but really wished someone would have given me better direction on good, worthwhile things to read.

 

My 6yo loves Ramona books, American Girl books, Magic Treehouse, etc. Are these twaddle books?

 

Someone said to me, it doesn't matter what they read, as long as they are reading. Given my past experience I feel strongly against that view, just don't know how to prove that statement wrong.

 

Whoa, long-winded. Sorry, it's late. Any thoughts?

[chris's girl]

I think the standard can be different for every kid. If my 12 year old preferred Magic Tree House over other stuff consistently, I would say for her that is twaddle. But the MTH books are what got my next 2 reading at all, so for them it's not twaddle, at least not right now.

To me junk would be cartoony books and books with just no plot for kids who should be reading books with a plot. We have had some Disney books given to us, but to me they fit in there with junk. But that's here. Maybe Disney books get some kids reading, which IS the most important thing in the younger years. It'd be one thing if you did not introduce better books and just let them pick books willy nilly all the time based on pop culture, but it doesn't sound like that's the case. Continue to introduce and read (or have them read) better literature for school. That's what I do, anyway. :P

[Mom in High Heels]

I honestly don't get the whole "twaddle" thing. I am one of those people who feel that if it gets a kid to read, then great. I, like you, read loads of "twaddle," but that's not the only thing I read. You can't read classics and heavy books all the time, IMO. Sometimes you need something light and fluffy. I still read loads of so called "twaddle" (I'm a big fan of chick lit) but I've read hundreds of classics and some of my all time favorite books are classics (Tale of Two Cities, The Good Earth, The Count of Monte Cristo) and I read them over and over. It hasn't hurt me at all that I've read "twaddle." I think by denying kids to read books that are just for fun, you can turn off their love of reading. Indy still struggles with reading (dyslexia), so I'm thrilled that he wants to read anything. Right now I don't make him read classic books, but I do read them to him as part of school and he loves them. Later, once his reading has improved (we just recently went through Davis dyslexia therapy) he will of course have to read more classical books, for now, the fact that he's picking up any book to read thrills me.

[Carrie12345]

I have slightly mixed *feelings* on the topic, but I do basically let my kids read whatever the heck they want, so long as they're reading.

 

I've always struggled with "understanding" literature, as does ds. Ds is on the autism spectrum, and I have my own little ASD tendencies. We find non-fiction and straight forward fluff to be much easier and satisfying to read.

 

If it weren't for fluff, I'm not sure how much I would have read growing up. Instead, I was known for having my nose in a book. And I did manage to enjoy a few "good" books (The Secret Garden, The Little Princess, Black Beauty, the Little House series, etc.) and I'm not sure I would have been able to get through them without my background in fluff. ;)

 

Good lit is still tough for me (and ds), but we do tackle it, and WANT to tackle it, probably due to our general love of reading. And the easier stuff is what keeps us going.

 

Right now, my girls enjoy listening to the better books, but they do gravitate toward reading more fluff independently. That's good enough for me right now.

[Capt_Uhura]

Well, at the end of a hard day, I'd like nothing better than curling up with my Star Trek Voyager trilogy :tongue_smilie: As far as MTH, I consider that a series they read when learning to read. Once they are out of the learning to read stage and are firmly reading to learn, then I think classics/good books increase while fluff decreases and is relegated to free time.

[my2boysteacher]

I grew up reading Sweet Valley Twins/High, Babysitters Club, VC Andrews(!!), etc. I loved reading, but really wished someone would have given me better direction on good, worthwhile things to read.

 

 

 

I feel the same way. My DH bought me a Kindle for my birthday, and since I'm so cheap :tongue_smilie: I've been loading it with free books which are mostly classics. In the last two weeks I've read; "Little Women, "Pride and Prejudice", "Sense & Sensibility" and I'm currently reading "Little Men" aloud to my sons. I am enjoying these books so much and feel a sense of loss that I wasn't encouraged to read them sooner. I was a voracious reader as a child, but was never given any guidance as to what books to read so I did read all twaddle.

I really want my children to read literature that is rich and engaging and will leave them wanting more.

As my children are still young I do allow them to choose what they like for free reading time, but I will gradually narrow their choices to books I find more mentally stimulating and beneficial to them.

[Farrar]

I read a lot of junk as a kid. Sweet Valley High being one of the leaders on the list. As an adult, I still read a good amount of junky novels - like, while I'm loathe to admit it because I think they're genuinely horrible, I've read the entire Stephenie Meyers canon. A light and fun read has a place. None of it has stopped me from enjoying great literature and I *can* tell the difference. On the other hand, if someone had come along and bullied me into not reading things I wanted to read or taking away my books, I feel like there's a chance that might have killed my love of reading.

 

That said, I do guide my kids away from some of the books that I find the junkiest. I don't point them out to them or buy them for them. And if I can't stand something - I mean, really can't stand it - I won't read it aloud. However, anything they discover on their own and read to themselves is fair game. My kids are young, so it's not totally an issue yet, but one of my sons has already delved into the whole Disney early readers books. At the library the other day, he discovered that there are Avatar: the Last Airbender early readers too. I bite my tongue and also give him Frog and Toad or Cynthia Rylant books.

[MeanestMomInMidwest]

I let my kids read whatever they want.

 

As a child I was allowed to read whatever I wanted. I read most of what a lot of folks on here would consider "bad" or "twaddle" (however I think Sweet Valley High was after my time because I never heard of that series). I also read a lot of classics. Read Little Women before I was in high school and then went on to read most of the rest of Louisa May Alcott's books. To this day I can't help finding and reading every book every written by an author if I happen upon one I liked. I was a voracious reader - still am. I immersed myself in the books to the point of ignoring all else - still do. I read very quickly so was able to read many, many books - still do.

 

So, with all this trash and some classics, I grew up to major in English Lit, which was a delight to my book loving self, but a disaster when it came to choosing a college major that would actually provide some monetary support for my future.

 

Twaddle is in the eye of the beholder and may or may not have anything to do with determining a child's literary future. As you can see from the posts here, many who were not introduced to the classics until adulthood still managed to mature into thoughtful, intelligent people. We can probably find someone who was introduced to classics at a young age and grew up to be an adult who only reads the comics in the newspaper. It is not the books that make the difference, it is the total environment, the child's innate nature, etc. Of course, my opinion only and all those disclaimers.

 

ETA: I still read a fair amount of what I'm sure would be considered by some to be twaddle. I prefer to call them "Beach Reads" and pretend I'm at the beach!

Edited August 2, 2010 by MeanestMomInMidwest

[NanceXToo]

I never even heard the word "twaddle" til I came to this board.

 

I AM in the "as long as they're reading, that's great!" camp, and I let my kids read what they want to read.

 

I take my 9 y/o to the library and she picks out whatever she wants. When I'm at used book sales and whatnot, if I see books I think she'd enjoy (many of which are better "quality") I will get them and leave them accessible and/or suggest reading them aloud together.

 

I grew up being allowed to read whatever I wanted to read. And sometimes it was just 'fluff' and other times it was something 'better'- I loved reading so much that I made my way through all kinds of books from childhood through adulthood.

 

If I had been refused permission to read books I wanted to, or forced to read books I didn't want to, I don't know that I'd have continued loving reading as much as I always have.

[Rosy]

I grew up reading Sweet Valley Twins/High, Babysitters Club, VC Andrews(!!), etc. I loved reading, but really wished someone would have given me better direction on good, worthwhile things to read.

 

I read all those books growing up too. Why on earth did anyone think VC Andrews would be appropriate content for a kid??? (or an adult, for that matter.) I still get the heebie-jeebies when I think about those books. :glare:

 

My belief is that twaddle has it's place. Most kids won't go straight from Bob Books to the classics, so there should be something in between while they get comfortable with reading. For our read-alouds and books on CD for the van, I try to choose books that are more qualitative. And once they're comfortable with reading, I bring home meatier books from the library. So far, twaddle hasn't ruined their "appetite" for better books.

 

Magic Tree House--yes, to me that is twaddle. DS reads it to me every day for his reading practice, and the sentence fragments drive me crazy. I don't think of Beverly Cleary books as twaddle, the sentences are longer and more complex. I don't know about American Girl books. DD6 loves Ivy & Bean--again, twaddle, but she loves them and if they help her learn to read, fine.

 

For our read-alouds, some of our favorites have been The Secret Garden, the Chronicles of Narnia, The Mouse and the Motorcycle (not as rich, but still a good read), just about anything by Roald Dahl. These are all interesting to younger kids but still quality reading materials.

 

She might do ok with Charlotte's Web or Stuart Little to read on her own, too.

Edited August 2, 2010 by Rosy

[Brenda in FL]

My experience is that there really is a danger that you are decreasing your child's appetite for good literature when you allow them to read too much twaddle. I see this particularly with one child who loves all the scholastic books on fairies and tiara clubs - she will read and re-read these for hours - they are the only books she seeks out at the library. She has an interest in other books, but it will take her weeks to finish what I would consider not twaddle compared to her desire to read the easy, fluffy stuff.

 

I would caution moms with grammar age kids, to limit the amount of twaddle and assign specific books to read if your child won't naturally select them. I used to think what does it matter as well as they are reading also - now I know better!! And I should have highlighted SWB's comment about it in TWTM!!

 

As far as MTH - I don't consider it twaddle if thry're being read by K-2 graders. There's much a child can learn about history in these books. I would consider it a waste my time to use them as family read-alouds, though.

[Rivka]

I don't like the word "twaddle" because it seems so disrespectful of kids' interests and preferences.

 

I also think that twaddle is often in the eye of the beholder. I'm guessing that there are parents here who would consider all science fiction to be twaddle, not differentiating between poor-quality, cliched series books and thoughtful novels of high literary quality. In the other direction, I think there are 19th century books that were the twaddle of their time, which have now been elevated to literary respectability because they're old.

 

I do refuse to read licensed-character books out loud. I just can't tolerate the poor quality of a book that was written as a work-for-hire or by a corporate author instead of by someone who had a story to tell. But my child is free to read books like that on her own.

Edited August 2, 2010 by Rivka

[Paige]

I don't care what my son reads in his free time as long as it is not inappropriate for children his age. I require him to read certain books that I think are high quality for his school work, so anything after that is bonus as far as I'm concerned. I also don't only choose classics for his school reading. I think there are lots of good, quality books to explore that have been written more recently and I don't want him to miss out on them because he is working through a classics list. He's fairly young, however, and a lot of the classics deal with mature subjects or are so full of racist and ethnocentric ideas that I prefer him to wait until he's a bit older to read a lot of them.

 

My daughters are not good readers yet and I would be thrilled to have them read the Rainbow Fairies or Wind Dancers books on their own. I encourage my kids to read as much of what they like as they can when they are beginning and struggling readers. I would even have my son sit with a stack of Calvin and Hobbes just to get him to happily read something.

[Shelly in the Country]

I wonder about this sometimes...

 

From my own experience as a child, I didn't read much "twaddle". It's not that it was forbidden to me, I just didn't care for it. I can't stomach adult "twaddle" now. I don't know if that is because I didn't read much twaddle as a kid, or if I didn't like it then and I don't like it now. Perhaps it's some kind of personality thing? I try to steer my kids away from twaddle, but I let them read some on occasion. Moderation and all that.

[m0mmaBuck]

If I could get my son to read anything voluntarily, I would rejoice. I guess that puts me in the "if it gets them reading" camp.

[ClassicalTwins]

Let them read what they want...as adults we often only have time to read industry journals and books for advancing college degrees, I'd love to have the time to read the fun stuff.

[vonfirmath]

I read all those books growing up too. Why on earth did anyone think VC Andrews would be appropriate content for a kid??? (or an adult, for that matter.) I still get the heebie-jeebies when I think about those books. :glare:

 

VC Andrews is the only book my dad ever forbid me to read any further (as a 9th grader) that I went behind his back and read anyway -- and I have lived to regret it over and over. This is NOT stuff I want in my head to ponder upon.

 

Sweet Valley High/Twins -- I remember these on the shelves. (I graduated HS in 1991). I'm sure I picked them up a time or two because I devoured EVERYTHING. But they never appealed to me. One of the series, I'm sure it is because it is standard romance fair and romances were one thing I eschewed unless there was more plot to make them worthwhile (my sister got these historical romances called "Sarah" and "Rebekah" and such that were enjoyable)

[Hedgehogs4]

my ds read magic treehouse...something about king arthur when he was in the first grade. it was what got him reading, and he had his first exposure to king arthur then. it was very useful at the time and it was his first successful chapter book. if he were still reading those books now, at age 9 when he is capable of Alice in Wonderland, shipwrecked, Sir Malcom and the Missing Prince and much deeper stuff, it would be "twaddle."

 

"twaddle" is a charlotte mason term.

 

Since posting the original post on twaddle, i have decided that my son will be discouraged from reading the 27 books on aliens and ufos. it seems a real waste of his gray matter, and i believe that it is my job to be the judge of that at this point in his life. i'm his mother.

[skueppers]

VC Andrews is the only book my dad ever forbid me to read any further (as a 9th grader) that I went behind his back and read anyway -- and I have lived to regret it over and over. This is NOT stuff I want in my head to ponder upon.

 

Flowers in the Attic was popular when I was in fifth grade in 1979/1980. I read it and a couple of its sequels as they came out. Not only did they not scar me for life, I can't even remember what they were about. Of course, this was 30 years ago!

[MeanestMomInMidwest]

Flowers in the Attic was popular when I was in fifth grade in 1979/1980. I read it and a couple of its sequels as they came out. Not only did they not scar me for life, I can't even remember what they were about. Of course, this was 30 years ago!

 

I read them too, and don't think I'm scarred. I'd write more, but I have to go put rat poison in the powdered sugar on the donuts I give to the rats that in my attic. If you hear any strange noise from up there, rest assured it is just rats, not children. :D

 

Okay, I remember the books and maybe they warped me if not scarred me (or maybe its a chicken/egg thing with the warping of me and the books)