What age for complete Gulliver's Travels?

[Mommy22alyns]

Title asks it all!

[Incognito]

Well, I think I was 36... :)  But for kids, I think it really depends on what you want them to get out of it.  The political overtones are complex, the bathroom humor is juvenile.  Young kids could well enjoy it (I think my 7 year old would listen attentively), but they would get very different things out of it than a teenager.

[Mommy22alyns]

I didn't read it until I was an adult either!

[Beth S]

I call it one of our classic "Road Trip" books, and they read it in 8th-9th grade.

We do Pilgrim's Progress and Don Quixote in the same sweep.

My main goal is so that they catch the cultural awareness (& the satire).

YMMV!

[Farrar]

I'm going to go with never.

[Chrysalis Academy]

I'm going to go with never.

 

:lol: I didn't read it until I was 40-ish, and I can't say it transformed my life or anything.  You do need to understand the cultural reference, but Liliputian as a vocabulary word is something I picked up in context many years before I read GT, and I was perfectly able to understand references to things Liliputian and Swiftian without having actually read the book - all I really needed was a quick summary, provided by a high school English teacher, I think.

 

I feel the same way about Robinson Crusoe.  Every kid should understand what the story was about, and what a "man Friday" is, because there are so many references to it in our culture.  But you can get by without actually reading the book.  

 

These were two "classic/must-reads" that I really didn't enjoy all that much.

[umsami]

We read it in 9th or 10th grade.  I loved it.  I have no idea if that's the "right" age, but that's what I did as a kid. :)

 

My kids aren't quite there yet.

[Farrar]

To clarify my opinion... I feel like it's most often read as the example of great literary satire, except the vast majority of the plot and satirical references will go over anyone's head, regardless of age, without extensive study. And the things it satirizes aren't relevant to people's lives today, when the whole point of satire is that it be relevant and thought provoking. Trying to understand satire by reading Gulliver's Travels is just baffling to me. I think it's much better to read a piece of current satire. And, if classic satire is desired, "A Modest Proposal" also by Swift, is short and vastly easier to understand, not to mention a piece that still garners an emotional response - in part because it's just more provocative, but also, I think, in part, because it's still much more relevant. While anti-Irish sentiment has faded, anti-poor sentiments in general have not.

 

Of course, some people want to read it for the cultural references. But then I'd just watch that cheesy Ted Danson movie and read an excerpt to get the flavor.

 

This is just my own take, of course. :)

[Kfamily]

Yes, my older daughter really intensely disliked Gulliver's Travels. She reads so much and so widely that I had no trouble letting her read just part of GT. We did read and discuss "A Modest Proposal" too.

 

She read this as a junior in high school. I really think that I'd save it for at least high school. :)

[Another Lynn]

Oldest ds had to read whole thing in 10th or 11th 9th or 10th (oops, I accidentally promoted him).  He hated it.  I think excerpts would do.  I remember reading A Modest Proposal in highschool and still remember it and the satire, etc.  I agree with others that it's preferable for that. 

[Mommy22alyns]

Is there a particular printing that does the excerpts well, or would you read portions from the whole, kind of winging it?

 

I personally thought it was hilarious, but like I said, I read it as an adult.