How many pre-read every book?

[EMS83]

How many of you pre-read every book you assign and/or strew? I feel like it's important, but there are so. many. books. that I'm tired of books. But I'm still not done planning yet, so I can't just quit. How many split the pre-reading load with their spouse? My DH has offered this option, though he works fairly long days and I hate to ask that of him in the evenings.

[stripe]

No. I have had some surprises. But I just don't have time, and my kids are interested in books other than those I read as a kid. Others I had read before but was surprised by because I forgot! (Little Princess, for example.)

[BinahYeteirah]

I tried and gave up. My oldest is a voracious reader. I think she reads about 400-600 pages a day when she has new books from the library. She slows down when she is reduced to rereading, but I still can't keep up with that and all the other stuff I need to do. I don't have time for my own pleasure reading as it is. I just try to choose things that I can assume will be okay.

[frugalmama]

Me. I pre-read everything unless it is a trusted author / series {and occasionally even then}.

 

I want to make sure that there isn't anything objectionable to us, especially in our school books. We use SL but are a non-christian family so pre-reading is essential.

[My3Munchkins]

I don't preread books I'm using for read alouds. I figure if something comes up, I can either skim over it or we can discuss it. I am giving DS a booklist next year (3rd grade) and I will be prereading all of those books.

[stripe]

Wait -- Are we talking about reading for pleasure or schoolbooks? I definitely don't just start assigning textbooks with no clue of what's inside. I've had too many racist surprises in those.

 

ETA: Not to mention, it would scare me to start a whole program with no concept of what's inside.

Edited June 14, 2012 by stripe

[Stellalarella]

I don't pre-read. I'm teaching the children to be discerning, as best as I can. As parents, we demonstrate by asking questions about our family read-alouds and our family audio books. We went on a trip recently, and I had chosen 2 audiobooks for the fam to listen to. One of them had some funny parts--but some of the humor was really profane, we just decided to listen to something else for that trip. My hope is that our actions speak loud and clear.

 

I do try to guide and shape, but I cannot be the thought police--especially not for an 11yo and a 13yo who are prolific readers.

[...................]

When my Dc were the ages of your children I did Pre-read every book. But then they became such avid readers that it would be nearly impossible to continue.

 

Instead I use reputable sources which align fairly well with my own standards to make my choices.

 

These include:

HOD

MFW

Sonlight through Core 4.

Veritas Press

Lamplighters Books

Ambleside Online (Kindle)

Robinson Book List (Kindle)

The 1000 Good Books List

HomeschOol Book Bowl

An older friend (8th grader) who is an avid reader with a great memory!

 

I scour these lists, putting on hold whatever I can find at the library. When we go to the library, my children know that they shouldn't even bother trying to randomly scan the shelves for fiction. They choose non-fiction and picture books and the **only** novels they read are the ones I found from recommended or reputable sources.

 

It has worked well. Using this method we have only had to toss aside a few books. My children came to me with problems and I read the piece and told then that they were correct, and this book would not be edifying for them.

[Five More Minutes]

No. I have had some surprises. But I just don't have time, and my kids are interested in books other than those I read as a kid. Others I had read before but was surprised by because I forgot! (Little Princess, for example.)

Oh dear -- what surprised you in Little Princess? I have vague memories of enjoying this as a child and was going to assign it to my daughter to read this year. What should I brace myself for?

 

ETA: I forgot to comment on the original question! No, I don't pre-read everything, because I just can't keep up.

 

When surprises do come up in our read-alouds, we discuss them. Then I decide to either abandon the story or else continue on with it anyway.

 

For example, I was surprised by one of the fairy tales in The Blue Fairy Book, and realizing that it was taking us nowhere good, decided to leave the story (and the whole book) for the time being. However, in some of our classic read-alouds, we encounter gender stereotypes and racial biases. So far I'm actually finding it more productive to talk about those biases openly and continue on, helping my girls to see how those prejudices end up affecting other aspects of the story.

Edited June 14, 2012 by Lynnita

[stripe]

Oh dear -- what surprised you in Little Princess? I have vague memories of enjoying this as a child and was going to assign it to my daughter to read this year. What should I brace myself for?

Oops, sorry, I meant Secret Garden.

 

"It is different in India," said Mistress Mary disdainfully. She could scarcely stand this.

 

But Martha was not at all crushed.

 

"Eh! I can see it's different," she answered almost sympathetically. "I dare say it's because there's such a lot o' blacks there instead o' respectable white people. When I heard you was comin' from India I thought you was a black too."

 

Mary sat up in bed furious.

 

"What!" she said. "What! You thought I was a native. You—you daughter of a pig!"

 

Martha stared and looked hot.

 

"Who are you callin' names?" she said. "You needn't be so vexed. That's not th' way for a young lady to talk. I've nothin' against th' blacks. When you read about 'em in tracts they're always very religious. You always read as a black's a man an' a brother. I've never seen a black an' I was fair pleased to think I was goin' to see one close. When I come in to light your fire this mornin' I crep' up to your bed an' pulled th' cover back careful to look at you. An' there you was," disappointedly, "no more black than me—for all you're so yeller."

 

Mary did not even try to control her rage and humiliation. "You thought I was a native! You dared! You don't know anything about natives! They are not people—they're servants who must salaam to you. You know nothing about India. You know nothing about anything!"

 

Just not something I was ready for! It's worth reading, but not very young, I think.

 

My kids asked me what a "negress" was, and a "negro servant boy" thanks to the Fairy Books.

[EMS83]

Definitely assigned reading. Their pleasure reading is usually Barbie or Transformers right now and though I inwardly sigh, I don't bother pre-reading that stuff; there's not much of it anyway. I've been on a crusade for the past month trying to pull together our assigned book list for 1st grade and I'd really, really like to stop reading but don't feel it's in anyone's best interest to give up.

[Pen]

Oops, sorry, I meant Secret Garden.

 

"It is different in India," said Mistress Mary disdainfully. She could scarcely stand this.

 

But Martha was not at all crushed.

 

"Eh! I can see it's different," she answered almost sympathetically. "I dare say it's because there's such a lot o' blacks there instead o' respectable white people. When I heard you was comin' from India I thought you was a black too."

 

Mary sat up in bed furious.

 

"What!" she said. "What! You thought I was a native. You—you daughter of a pig!"

 

Martha stared and looked hot.

 

"Who are you callin' names?" she said. "You needn't be so vexed. That's not th' way for a young lady to talk. I've nothin' against th' blacks. When you read about 'em in tracts they're always very religious. You always read as a black's a man an' a brother. I've never seen a black an' I was fair pleased to think I was goin' to see one close. When I come in to light your fire this mornin' I crep' up to your bed an' pulled th' cover back careful to look at you. An' there you was," disappointedly, "no more black than me—for all you're so yeller."

 

Mary did not even try to control her rage and humiliation. "You thought I was a native! You dared! You don't know anything about natives! They are not people—they're servants who must salaam to you. You know nothing about India. You know nothing about anything!"

 

Just not something I was ready for! It's worth reading, but not very young, I think.

 

My kids asked me what a "negress" was, and a "negro servant boy" thanks to the Fairy Books.

 

 

We had to deal with racism in our own lives because of our time at Waldorf, and we have watched things like Gandhi with Ben Kingsley together and discussed some such topics, so that helps to deal with such stuff as it might come up in literature. I've had more of a problem with things that are too violent. Or too scary. During the dog books phase, Call of the Wild was started, and then put away for when older due to too much violence. Sometimes what will seem scary can be a surprise. The Sound of Music as a movie, was at one point perceived as scary by my son--not something I would have anticipated. OTOH Macbeth was not, possibly because I had anticipated that it might be and we had talked about theater, and how it would at some point show ghosts and sword fights and people killed and even a head on a stake, but that it would not be a real head, and the actors would not actually be killed.

 

I don't review all books ahead at this stage, but at the age of OP's children, my son was not yet reading so everything was read-alouds, and I generally took an advance look.

[Momling]

I don't. But every once and a while I sort of wish I did. Mainly because I let my older daughter read adult or YA books that I've read but forgot about minor sordid details. Still, she's the kind of weirdly mature child who can handle that sort of thing without a big deal.

[beaners]

I had wonderful goals of pre-reading everything before my children. My daughter is nearly five. I can't keep up with her. I pre-read things we are going to do together. I read some things aloud if I know I will want to talk about them. I put books I know she shouldn't read yet on high shelves in my room. I am continually, constantly amazed by what I find her reading.

 

We have had a few issues. Sometimes it has been misbehavior blamed on copying characters in books. Sometimes I've needed to explain that some books use words that we don't use when we talk in real life. Sometimes it's been concern about something happening in a book, and whether that will happen to us. It's rare, but it happens. For now, allowing my daughter to read at her own pace has been a mostly positive thing in our house.

[tammyw]

I definitely don't pre-read, but I do go over the amazon reviews VERY thoroughly. I always start with the negative reviews, and then I read a good chunk of the positive reviews. I mostly want to get a feel for the content, and usually if there's anything objectionable, it gets mentioned in the reviews. I've found it a very effective way of screening.

 

I do the same with movies - only I use Netflix reviews AND commonsense media notes (which are also linked to Netflix).

[stripe]

We had to deal with racism in our own lives because of our time at Waldorf, and we have watched things like Gandhi with Ben Kingsley together and discussed some such topics, so that helps to deal with such stuff as it might come up in literature. I've had more of a problem with things that are too violent. Or too scary.

I have a kid who thinks almost everything is scary. But I prefer to have direct discussions with my kids about racism instead of reading many books with characters casually spouting racist views because it would be insulting them as well.

[Pen]

I have a kid who thinks almost everything is scary. But I prefer to have direct discussions with my kids about racism instead of reading many books with characters casually spouting racist views because it would be insulting them as well.

 

I agree with that. I think I have yet to have this happen with a book by son is reading on his own without me also being involved in the reading. I'm not sure though. I don't actually know if he came to a passage like the one you quoted if he would bring it to my attention, or not. Maybe it is good just to realize that older materials are likely to have such things and to particularly check them in that regard.

 

Maybe a thread on books that people have found to have questionable material, and to specify what sort of issue it is (since it might not be the same for everyone) would be helpful so as to not have everyone have to read every book? Or separate threads for various issues, such as one for racism, one for violence, and so on? We might not want to take another family's view for what would be an issue for us, but it might at least be a red-flag of what to look out for. Like for me your pointing out potential problems in The Secret Garden was.

 

 

The Laura Ingalls Wilder/Rose years series had things in them that showed a variety of different views and were good for discussion since I read them aloud. Laura's Ma doesn't like various groups of non-whites. But Pa is less that way. Laura is in a debate on who has it worse, Native Americans or African Americans. Rose sees the separate accommodations at train stations, and then learns more when she lives with her aunt in the South, and, it seems, grows apart from her long time beau in part because of very different beliefs about equal rights issues. ... Since the Rose books in particular were written more recently even though they start out many years ago, the attitudes tend to be more modern.

 

The read aloud in my sig below that we are now doing also has things about race and gender equality issues weaved in, which is one of many things that it can be good for sparking discussions about.

 

Things my son is reading on his own have some of these issues, but presented from a 2000AD viewpoint. The children in the Kane Chronicles are mixed-race, but look very different and that comes up from time to time. His book Storm Warning has an African American girl as the main character who is the adopted child of a white family and in a very white area. Race comes up in relation to how the children at school treat her, and also that she thinks (wrongly probably) that her parents don't trust her to be home alone because of her background. I guess I have skimmed them enough to be aware of that in these books' cases.

 

Maybe it is an advantage of some series books in that it is possible to get a sense of what they are like without reading all the pages that the child will be reading.

[Pen]

...Sometimes it has been misbehavior blamed on copying characters in books. ...

 

This, here also. And at age 10 --at least around here-- it tends to be feats of daring do. Pointing out what is real and safe, versus adventure and magical has been a big thing lately as he is on the Riordan books involving magic and sword fighting, and children on their own in the world and so on. No, in real life you can't actually x and survive. No, in real life you can't actually x without hurting someone else or yourself or causing a disaster. No, in real life major injuries are serious and can change your life for ever and always, you don't just take out a magic amulet and have them go away instantly....

 

And then there was the movie Spirit Bear which I thought was fiction, but turned out to be based on a real life story. The boy goes into the woods to meet the bear in order to get a DNA sample and is inches away from it--it licks his camera in fact, giving the needed sample. He takes his parent's car and in a rainstorm starts driving to try to get to a meeting... and is pushed off the road by someone who is presumably in favor of sacrificing Spirit Bear's home to the logging interests.

[Deniseibase]

Sometimes what will seem scary can be a surprise. The Sound of Music as a movie, was at one point perceived as scary by my son--not something I would have anticipated.

 

Yup - my son a couple years ago was terrified to the point of screaming and running from the room by a Hello Kitty video. To be fair, it was an adaptation of a fairy tale, and they had just introduced the villain, complete with scary music, clap of thunder, evil laugh, the whole nine yards. Not what I had expected when I popped in the pink DVD with the hearts & candy on it!! :D

 

That said, I rarely pre-read unless I think there is going to be an issue. My son still does mostly read-alouds, and I admit I will change poor word choices on the fly when reading old stories - just today I changed a few words in a picture book where a boy was saying that ALL boys hate pink - that's my son's favorite color!

 

My DD age 11 reads too widely for me to police her reading, too, although I do pre-read some titles and sometimes make recommendations. Last year she wanted to read I Shall Wear Midnight, in which a teen girl's friend gets beaten nearly to death by her father after he finds out she's gotten herself pregnant. It's not horribly graphic, but obviously it's upsetting, and I told her that it had some stuff in it that would probably upset her, and it was her choice to read it or not, but if she did and was bothered by it, I wanted her to talk to me. She started to read the book, got an inkling of where it was going from the foreshadowing, and decided to put the book back on the shelf until she's older.

 

This upcoming year I've got Red Scarf Girl on the literature list, and I know that will require pre-reading on my part, so we can discuss it while she's reading it. She's too old to have books censored for her, but I still want to be able to discuss, and sometimes caution.

[Parrothead]

No, I don't have time to pre-read everything. When dd was little and read to I didn't worry about it. When she was reading we would co-read aloud quite a bit. Now that she is reading a novel every few days I can't keep up. I get recommendations from the Hive, read reviews and sometimes I find reviews on this website (or others like it).

[nmoira]

I don't have time to pre-read everything, so I don't. I'm generally careful which books I strew, but 10yo DD the Elder has already devoured one series from the library that I might have had second thoughts about had I pre-read or even pre-thought :tongue_smilie: (Bloody Jack/Jacky Faber).

[JenneinCA]

I sure don't. I think I gave up pre-reading books about the time my oldest got really into chapter books. I could not read fast enough to keep up with her.

 

Honestly I have used my oldest to pre-read books for her younger brothers on occasion. She has more free time and reads very fast. It worked very well.

[Five More Minutes]

Oops, sorry, I meant Secret Garden.

"It is different in India," said Mistress Mary disdainfully. She could scarcely stand this.

 

But Martha was not at all crushed.

 

"Eh! I can see it's different," she answered almost sympathetically. "I dare say it's because there's such a lot o' blacks there instead o' respectable white people. When I heard you was comin' from India I thought you was a black too."

 

Mary sat up in bed furious.

 

"What!" she said. "What! You thought I was a native. You—you daughter of a pig!"

 

Martha stared and looked hot.

 

"Who are you callin' names?" she said. "You needn't be so vexed. That's not th' way for a young lady to talk. I've nothin' against th' blacks. When you read about 'em in tracts they're always very religious. You always read as a black's a man an' a brother. I've never seen a black an' I was fair pleased to think I was goin' to see one close. When I come in to light your fire this mornin' I crep' up to your bed an' pulled th' cover back careful to look at you. An' there you was," disappointedly, "no more black than me—for all you're so yeller."

 

Mary did not even try to control her rage and humiliation. "You thought I was a native! You dared! You don't know anything about natives! They are not people—they're servants who must salaam to you. You know nothing about India. You know nothing about anything!"

Just not something I was ready for! It's worth reading, but not very young, I think.

 

My kids asked me what a "negress" was, and a "negro servant boy" thanks to the Fairy Books.

 

Thanks for explaining this. I had a similar experience reading Secret Garden to my girls last year, and suddenly needing to explain why Mary was acting this way! It made for a good discussion.

[Dinsfamily]

I don't preread for my ds anymore, either. He reads too much for me to keep up. Like others, I only let him read books or series from respected sources or books I read growing up. We do have some great discussions based on what he reads and I do read books he recommends. It's a fun, bonding activity for us.

 

I'll probably start prereading heavily when he gets into young adult books. I'm totally out of my element there except for classics.

[nukeswife]

I've never pre-read anything other than the TMs I'd be using, but then again I'm not all that worried about things like those most people are worried about.

 

I also don't assign books to be read, or at least I haven't so far, my kids read whatever moves them to read.

[beaners]

Sometimes I've needed to explain that some books use words that we don't use when we talk in real life.

 

After looking through the spin-off thread, I want to clarify this statement. "Words we don't use in real life" are usually words that are considered cursing today but didn't have as strong a sentiment in the books we've read. Racist language would be discussed far more deeply than ass.

[prairiegirl]

I only pre-read what the kids read for school and, really, it is only what my oldest is reading as the two youngers read as I have already pre-read it for when my oldest was reading it. It is difficult to pre-read even the small list that I have but I have been caught unawares before and I didn't like that feeling. :001_smile:

[boscopup]

My son reads faster than I do, so I only pre-read a handful of books.

[Chelli]

Thanks for explaining this. I had a similar experience reading Secret Garden to my girls last year, and suddenly needing to explain why Mary was acting this way! It made for a good discussion.

 

:iagree:The scene quoted by a pp led to a great discussion between my dd and I about rascism and Mary's horrible attitude toward servants.

 

I had totally forgotten about the scene until I was reading it out loud, and I knew we were going to need to stop and talk about it as soon as I'd finished that passage, so we did.

[jer2911mom]

Sonlight through Core 4.

 

Hi,

 

Would you mind elaborating on this? What's after Core 4? This information would be helpful to me.

 

Thanks!

Kathy

[nellecv]

I don't preread. I think it's important to expose our kids to lots of different worldviews, even those we disagree with. While my daughter is young and we're doing read alouds, we take the time to discuss issues as they come up. I notice tons of mean name-calling in books. As DD gets older and reads independently, I hope she'll be thinking actively as she reads. We'll continue to discuss ads we see, news stories we hear, things other people say, etc. This should provide her with a strong foundation to keep her steady in the tide of opinions she'll encounter.

[Hunter]

I'm trying to pre-read everything that I give to my tutoring students.

 

When I do use something that includes discrimination, we talk about the Declaration of Human Rights, and don't get deeply into the individual type of discrimination of the marginalized person in the text. It's not about black/white, female/male, healthy/disabled, adult/child. It's about a certain group denying the humanity of another group, because of something they gain by doing so.

 

I want to be ready for discrimination, and I want to limit it. It wears a person down. It distracts from skill building.

 

The Little Princess is more subtle then the Secret Garden. That is just over the top, for my students. That is just...poison to a fragile person, and even to some stronger ones.

 

Lately, I have some things on my bookcases that I haven't read, and people are helping themselves to them and it worries me. Yes, they are adults--most of the time--but it came from ME, if it came off MY bookcase. And I just...worry.

[stripe]

When I do use something that includes discrimination, we talk about the Declaration of Human Rights, and don't get deeply into the individual type of discrimination of the marginalized person in the text.

I appreciate that you've pointed out your framework for dealing with this. Interestingly, I think this is how at least one of my son sees things too, and he can have some basic analysis of it; my daughter seems to find it so horrifying that she cannot speak about it at all.

 

I want to be ready for discrimination, and I want to limit it. It wears a person down. It distracts from skill building.

 

The Little Princess is more subtle then the Secret Garden. That is just over the top, for my students. That is just...poison to a fragile person, and even to some stronger ones.

Unfortunately, I have no doubt anything involving colonial India has insidious racism as an accepted fact. It's amazing, I read George Orwell's Burmese Days (another link) a while ago, and the racism there was pretty ... fascinating. Because it was just expected -- it was so "obvious" that "we" (the British officers and their wives) are so vastly superior to "them" (and they were called blacks and n-s in the text). At any rate, the idea of a child being tormented in an orphanage is a disturbing starting point!

[Hunter]

I'm finding that spreading out discrimination into human rights violations is a double edged sword. It seems to decrease the trauma of discrimination that is personal, but it seems to heighten general sensitivity. I don't know how else to handle it, though. For myself and my students, most of use have been heavily affected by more than one type of human rights violation. Some of us have almost died--some more than once--because of episodes of discrimination. So when a human rights violation comes up in our studies, of any type, some of us start immediately connecting what is transpiring in the book, to a personal memory.

 

It's not just words on a page. Not when people have almost died. Not when a person has experienced a time in their life when they were convinced that they were not human, and struggle to believe they are now human.

 

Some of us are only in the "fake it till you make it" phase, and a one sentence blip in a book, can rip off the costume and lay a person naked again. After one of those one sentence blips, a student's capacity to learn in greatly decreased. When disturbed our bodies go through all sorts of biological responses that are not immediately recovered from. They cannot be talked away. Talking doesn't remove hormones and chemicals from our bloodstream.

 

We cannot hide in a bubble, but we bubble ourselves with protective clothing and we bubble ourselves with protective housing, and sometimes we need to bubble ourselves with censored books. A person can only take so much of the unfiltered environment at a time, without damage, possibly permanent. And some people need a more filtered environment than others. It's considered child-abuse to expose a light-skinned child to the same amount of sunshine that a dark-skinned child can thrive in. I think it also a crime to expose a marginalized student to the steady diet of human rights violations. It doesn't toughen them up, any more than a sunburn is a good for a person.