My youngest son attended a high school that was mostly black.The majority of African American boys called each other the “N” word in a joking way.So did my son, who thought it was just a sort of male bonding thing.He didn’t understand that it was ridiculously inappropriate.

My Mom frequently read out loud to us, and picked many great books. The Scarlet Letter, however, was a flop, because I was 9 and didn’t know what adultery was. You try getting meaning from that book when you don’t know what adultery is, or what the A signifies, or why someone would sew it on their dress, or why people would shun people for it. Luckily she picked many other winning reads :).

We just got done reading the kids the Oxford Myths and Legends version of The Iliad.  While it was definitely a retelling, it kept some of the flavor of the original (or, rather, translations of the original, since my ancient Greek is a little rusty) and had a richness of vocabulary that I appreciated.  It was descriptive enough that even the five-year old could follow along, and not so simplistic that the 40 year old fell asleep (though he sometimes did anyway).

I confess that we searched out the long-out-of-print “Tintin in the Congo” in spite of the painfully obvious lack of cultural sensitivities, because we just couldn’t bear to leave one book of the excellent series unread.  However, just like when we were reading the old Dr. Doolittle books, we spent a lot of time talking about how depicting the African native peoples in “that way” dehumanized them, made them appear to be stupid and child-like, and was in every way WRONG.  Good grief, if we only read books that were completely devoid of every “modern” cultural faux pas, we’d be limited to—I can’t even think what we’d be limited to!  As for favorite read-alouds, we’re doing Treasure Island right now, and I’d forgotten just how captivating it is.  Even the 5 year old is listening.  But probably my favorites are the Little House books and The Lord of the Rings.

Oh, and I can’t get over the irony of schools banning “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” because it’s insulting to African Americans!

Reading the Morte D’Arthur is a bit like that. Great story, but you have to deal with page after page of -
“And then Sir So-and-So brast his sword and cut the Red/Blue/Green/Tartan Knight’s helm in twain, and blood ran in rivulets”.
If you repeat that scene for five hundred pages you may have some idea of what it can be like to read it (I didn’t last - got halfway through and had to stop).

I’ve found with The Princess and the Goblin that they get it if I don’t stop. Just keep reading, and the narrative will “catch them up” and what they do get of the images makes it all work—for some of them. Number five and six and I are halfway through The Princess and Curdie right now, and the only complaint is from the nine year old, who keeps saying, “Why is the princess in the title if we’re never going to see her?” He really like Irene in the first book, I think.

I’m amazed that your two little ones allow you to read out loud at all.  My sweet littlest flower rampages and distracts, and also used to snatch books from hands.  She frequently gets ejected from the room where she proceeds to pound on the door miserably to get reinstated.  Right now the two boys, 6 and nine are enjoying the tail end of the “Little House” series, and I think will also enjoy the Great Brain series because they are very simple, but have powerful imagery.  My six year old wouldn’t put up with The Princess and the Goblin for more than a few minutes.  He has a fiery little temper,and vocalizes his objections loudly.  As for the text above, I’m not even certain if the author would stand by it.  I bet he’d been toking on the opium pipe a little too hard, when he wrote it.

Wow - what a paragraph.  That explains why I was so often confused when my dad read those books to us (although I liked them anyway).  And a recommendation: my sister and her husband swear by Pinochio (the real book, of course) as a great read for kids of different ages to listen to together. Toddlers, ten-year-olds, and in-betweens all seemed to enjoy it.

@Kathleen, my son had the same experience as yours when he went to high school with the kids from the Marin City projects.  The “n” word was a term of affection and endearment, but you had to tread lightly.  If you were a white kid, you had to earn the right to use it with the brothers.
.
In Latin America, it is definitely a term of affection as well.  Nothing drives the point home better for my kids than when their father is watching soccer.  He will leap from the couch with arms outstretched toward the screen yelling “Negrito Divino!”  My kids will look at me and ask what Daddy just shouted, and I’ll tell them that it is a form of nearly divinizing another human being.
.
The countries colonized by Spain are less neurotic about these terms because they intermarried with the indigenous people and slaves, while the British colonizers exterminated, isolated and put non whites at arm’s length.

Some time ago the American Library Association questioned the “sanitizing” of Huckleberry Finn.

I know this is more about vocabulary, but how do you fix stories like “Hansel & Gretel” or “Little Red Riding Hood?”
Most classic children’s tales have lots of peril & violence.You can modernize/sanitize the translation, but the plot remains.Which is generally OK.

anna lisa:
The countries colonized by Spain are less neurotic about these terms because they intermarried with the indigenous people and slaves, while the British colonizers exterminated, isolated and put non whites at arm’s length.”
************************************************
I think that’s generally true, but I have known folk from Central America who are very sensitive to any hint of African heritage.It may be less so in South America.
In the early days of British colonies folks didn’t seem to be as concerned with race.Free blacks owned slaves & color lines were more blurred.

I am astonished that your conscience would allow you to read the works of an atheist…

@Kathleen, yes, I have seen plenty of embarrassing examples of what you describe in South America too, but it is not as pronounced in the newer generations.  Of course *soccer* is in a category all its own.  Lol, I was by no means giving them a merit badge for being “less neurotic”.

I heard one time about people using Huckleberry Finn to teach people English, in English as a second language classes.  No answer to the question.  The captain of a ship is more truly the container of a ship than the ship is of the captain, as it the the captain keeps the ship from crashing against the rocks.

I once taught a 9th-grade literature class to inner city Washington DC kids (read: all black from Southeast, most with single mothers). One of the texts they responded to the most was Huckleberry Finn. The other was Who’s On First by Abbott and Costello.

The first day we did Huck Finn and the N-word came up was hilarious. “What he say?! Aw, heyl naw!” They ended up enjoying the book.

I was once tutoring a college freshman in Latin and we came upon the Latin word for black, “niger.”  He chuckled and said, “so if I call black people niggers and they get upset, they’re just being ignorant because it’s a perfectly good Latin word.”  And I responded, “sure, just like if I called you a homo and you got upset, you would just be ignorant because it is a perfectly good Latin word.”

I think I’d object more to editing a book for style than I would for political correctness.

@Mr. Patton, why are you astonished and who is the atheist?

Posted by Mr. Patton on Friday, Feb 15, 2013 12:44 PM (EST):

I am astonished that your conscience would allow you to read the works of an atheist…”
******************************
I don’t really believe that of Mark Twain. I think he protested a bit too much for it to be really true.

anna lisa,
I saw a documentary about Brazil on TV a while back. Brazil was offering some kind of scholorship-maybe college. To qualify for this particular scholorship, grant,college acceptance-whatever it was, one had to prove African ancestry.Virtually everyone in Brazil came forth with some type of African connection no matter how remote. One family looked completely European, the daughter had blonde hair, etc. But sure enough, way, way back there was an African ancestor.
Someone once said that eventually we’ll all look like folks do in Brazil & just be comfortable being human beings.

As a Catholic school teacher, I often saw teachers and principals opt to go with “literature” that is decidedly NOT classic, is any shape or form (“It’s necessary to have the students’ interest, so read something ‘today’ is the most common rationale for skipping the classics.)
It is important to read the classics, just as it is reading the Bible.  I would take one of the new translations and then read the same passages from the Douay-Rheims and guess what? Middle school students are beginning to appreciate language-though some of the words are unclear (that’s why you do things like context-clues, etc). For that matter, I required my 8th graders to read The Keys of the Kingdom and they were introduced to Aquinas’ Quinque Viae.
There are so many students who will go on to graduate from high school and college, for that matter, who will never know what they are missing.

@anna lisa: 
“The countries colonized by Spain are less neurotic about these terms because they intermarried with the indigenous people and slaves…”
—  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  — 
There are many reasons why the Spanish (and French) colonization in the New World failed while that of the British succeeded, but the most salient reasons are who settled and why.  These two reasons directly affected the intermarriage to which you refer.

The British colonized as an extension of their country and culture with the express intent to permanently reside with their families for generations to come and thereby expand the British Empire.  They brought men, women and children to the new colonies; and in many instances whole families resettled together.  Because the men had access to women of their own society, there was no need for the men to intermarry with the local indigenous peoples; though some did, most did not.  They were not kept at “arm’s length” for racial reasons as you insinuate, but primarily for cultural reasons. 

Conversely, the Spanish came as conquistadores to conquer and exploit the new lands.  They had no intent to permanently settle and therefore brought very few if any women of their own society with them.  The exceptions were the governors and other high officials representing the king.  For most of the first century of Spanish rule in the America’s, over 95% of the Spanish were foot soldiers in the king’s army.  Because there were no women of Spanish society for the soldiers, their only recourse for sexual pleasure was with the local indigenous women.  And for those women, I’m sure it was not a pleasant experience.

@anna lisa: 
“The countries colonized by Spain are less neurotic about these terms because they intermarried with the indigenous people and slaves…”
—  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  — 
There are many reasons why the Spanish (and French) colonization in the New World failed while that of the British succeeded, but the most salient reasons are who settled and why.  These two reasons directly affected the intermarriage to which you refer.

The British colonized as an extension of their country and culture with the express intent to permanently reside with their families for generations to come and thereby expand the British Empire.  They brought men, women and children to the new colonies; and in many instances whole families resettled together.  Because the men had access to women of their own society, there was no need for the men to intermarry with the local indigenous peoples; though some did, most did not.  They were not kept at “arm’s length” for racial reasons as you insinuate, but primarily for cultural reasons. 

Conversely, the Spanish came as conquistadores to conquer and exploit the new lands.  They had no intent to permanently settle and therefore brought very few if any women of their own society with them.  The exceptions were the governors and other high officials representing the king.  For most of the first century of Spanish rule in the America’s, over 95% of the Spanish were foot soldiers in the king’s army.  Because there were no women of Spanish society for the soldiers, their only recourse for sexual pleasure was with the local indigenous women.  And for those women, I’m sure it was not a pleasant experience.

A practical question: is one allowed to re-write a classic—or any work, for that matter—just like that? Does one need to get permission or worry about copyright laws?

@Kathleen, you are describing my children.  I don’t think I’m exaggerating to say they have absolutely everything but Aborigine in them. :)!

Two of my kids get asked if they are part Asian because some of the Slavic on one side and American Indian (which my MIL won’t fess up to) on the other linked up.  My kid in middle school can’t convince the Mexican kids that he’s Latin because he looks Irish and has freckles :) Funny huh?  Oops, off topic aren’t we ;)...

You are welcome to judge for yourselves about Mr. Clemens;

http://philosopedia.org/index.php/Samuel_Clemens

There’s an obvious difference between creating child-friendly versions of classics (like the graphic novel of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe) and creating versions that remove history.  Censorship is an exceptionally complex issue that can’t and shouldn’t be simplified into a yes/no answer.  And crazylikeknoxes(who writes, “I was once tutoring a college freshman in Latin and we came upon the Latin word for black, ‘niger.’  He chuckled and said, ‘so if I call black people niggers and they get upset, they’re just being ignorant because it’s a perfectly good Latin word.’  And I responded, ‘sure, just like if I called you a homo and you got upset, you would just be ignorant because it is a perfectly good Latin word’”):  there’s also an obvious difference between denotation and connotation.  Calling someone a “homo” in today’s communities is a bit more layered than you seem to believe.

“Peter Pan.” (The original.) It was my father’s favorite as a child, and my youngest son loved it when I read it aloud to him. Also, loved by both of my boys, is Sperry’s “Call It Courage”, “Tanglewood Tales” by Hawthorne, and, of course, the Brothers Grimm.

Many people don’t look past the use of racial slur vernacular in Huck Finn to get to the meat of the story with is actually abolitionist and supports equal acceptance between races. Huck goes through a major metamophosis through the book in helping Jim escape to freedom. A huge fallacy comes in judging writings of past ages in accord with our time. Things written in times past yile tremendous insight into the psyche and attitudes, and the language is part of it. In fact the language in conjunction with Huck’s passage of conversion, and Huck is not a polished speaker and would have used the harsh language, having lived in harsh times, makes it very relevant. We think our attitudes have made great leaps, and in some ways they have. But derrogatory language and attitudes still exist, although often covertly. Huck Finn makes the point that anyone can come ti cenversion, provided they accept God’s message, no matter which way it comes to them, even in a baptism of fire as with Huck.

“Things written in times past yile tremendous insight into the psyche and attitudes, and the language is part of it.”  Agreed, Deacon Bill.  And what does it say of our communities when we attempt to whitewash history and pretend this period wasn’t what it truly was?  Honesty about human history says much about our willingness to confront past wrongs and reject them in the future.

It took me a few decades to read the first few thousand chapters of A Tale Of Two Cities…which when I finally got through it turned out to only be a few pages, and after that it was great.

The Princess Bride.  That’s all I have to say.

@Mr. Patton, thank you. While heretical statements abound, the evidence is in agreement with the conclusion cited in your link, he was ‘a theist’.

Growing up in the 90s, watching “Wishbone” got me interested in the classics. They were kid-friendly version of the Odessy, Cyrano de Bergerac, Shakespear plays, Tale of Two Cities there are a few episodes on YouTube I think…But I don’t know if there are DVDs of them somewhere…In college I studied lit and loved it! And though WIshbone oversimplied the stories it was enough to catch my interest.

Am I the only Philistine who doesn’t read classics out loud to her children?  I do quote Shakespeare occasionally, which has caused my five year old to call his brother a “filthy, worsted stocking knave.”  I pretty much stop reading books out loud when a child can get through An A to Z mystery all by himself.  Reading outloud books without rhymes is torture for me. 
.
Although I wouldn’t want to speak the N-word in front of my kids, censoring Huck Finn would be a terrible mistake, but since it’s not something I’d read out loud to my children anyway, I don’t need to go there.
.
There is a modern web series adaptation of Pride and Prejudice.  It’s called the Lizzie Bennet Diaries.  My daughter introduced me to it.  At first I loved it and then as it went on, I think the authors felt compelled to make the series more politically correct - thanks to Sandra Fluke and Rush Limbaugh.  They’re trying their best to make Lydia sympathetic.  P&P really loses something in this translation.  I’ll watch the series to the end (only a few more weeks), but I’m disappointed in something that started out so well.

I read The Lord of the Rings to my son, aged 7+.  Took more than a year, but when we were done, we both cried.  The ultimate bonding experience.

How funny, I have just been listening to and delighting in Princess and the Goblin from librivox.

We are reading the Chronicles of Narnia… We are on book 5 and my 6 year old loves it.

When our kids were young, and later for some of the grandkids also, I read some of the Lewis Carroll poems from “Alice in Wonderland” and “Alice through the Looking Glass”. 
The kids enjoyed them, especially lines like the last line of “You are old, Father William” . . . “Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?  Be off, or I’ll kick you downstairs!”  which they would join in on with gusto, even anticipating it.
When our oldest was teaching a middle school grade, he assigned memorization of one of the shorter Carroll poems as a penalty for unruly behavior in class.  To prove the memorization, the culprit would have to repeat the poem from memory in class the next day. The others in class always found this entertaining.
I still can repeat several of the Carroll poems from memory - and our now adult children recall them as well. Using these as bedtime stories encouraged our children to do some reading in Alice to find more humourous mental pictures.
Thanks for reminding me.
TeaPot562

These may be ‘youngish’ but older children as well enjoy Brer Rabbit, Pinnochio, Song of Roland, Belloc’s Cautionary Tales, Bad Child’s Book of Beasts, and More Beasts for Worse Children, anything by Marguerite D’Angeli, (Door in the Wall, Thee Hannah, etc.) Wind in the Willows, Stuart Little, all the great classic stories and parables from the Bible (Knox translation reads aloud well), I have a weakness for Island of the Blue Dolphins and anything else by Scott O’Dell, the Norse Myths (there is a good version by Padraic Collum if the Snorri Sturlesson one is too snorey) and if you are crunched for time, no one is too old for Beatrix Potter. And though these are not ‘classic literature’ all the stories by Ralph Moody (Horse of a Different Color etc.) are captivating.

@Eileen, I too am a Philistine, and a bully to boot since I guilt my husband into doing it.  When I was little, my Mom bribed me with nickles, dimes and raisins to learn to read, page by page, book by book.  She never read to us *ever*.  We were put to bed on a rigorous schedule so reading was my salvation, and the escape route from a room with blackout curtains.  She actually takes me to task if she discovers my husband is reading to them.  She thinks this is *terrible*!  I fell asleep to the sound of my father playing the grand piano every night however, so I don’t feel that I missed out on anything, but I did think that all Dads did that.

I’m sorry, did someone say that they were surprised someone else’s conscience would allow them to read a work of fiction by an atheist?  What sort of nonsense is that?

Actually, my mom successfully read The Princess and the Goblin out loud to a bunch of us, and I loved it. I re-read it for myself later, as did my sister (who is only 11 now). Similarly dated works have similar language, it’s just how they wrote then, and once you acclimate it isn’t so bad :-). I think that one is just a matter of taste—your family doesn’t have a taste for that style, and that’s fine. But MacDonald is accessible to some young kids, if not all.

I think I read Simcha’s blog as much for the great material as for the great comments. 
Haha @ anna lisa and Adolfo

J.M. you hit on the key to reading literature with antiquated language - you have to do it a lot. The kids get used to it and understand it.  My mom almost exclusively read us books written pre-1920.  They were children’s books but today the language is difficult for young children:  the Beatrix Potter books, Milne’s Pooh books, Morte D’Arthur, Lang’s fairy books, Kipling’s Just-So-Stories, etc. etc.  The key is you have to stick with them. As for content I often read retellings such as Wanda Gag’s Tales from Grimm.  Good heavens, the orginal Grimm stories are full of sex and violence and I would never read them to kids.  Nothing wrong with retellings for kids as long as it’s clear they are retellings.

@Harry
“
Reading the Morte D’Arthur is a bit like that. Great story, but you have to deal with page after page of -
“And then Sir So-and-So brast his sword and cut the Red/Blue/Green/Tartan Knight’s helm in twain, and blood ran in rivulets”.”

Steinbeck wrote a version that is in modern language as this was one of his favorite stories as a kid. “The Acts of King Arthur and his noble Knights” was published posthumously.

Caucasian Americans, living in the insane environment we do, have freely taken on the yoke of self-hatred for no reason other than that TV news programs and public schools have indoctrinated our people. We are told we must feel guilty for institutional slavery which took place long before we were born. (A new take on Original Sin?)

During the golden age of slavery, my family lived in Poland and Russia, living the high-life of something akin to serfdom.  When they came to the United States they were met with scorn—more so because they were Catholics. They held on to each other and their culture for solace. They did not refuse to enter the mainstream—they fought to acquire it. And gradually they won. They did not win acceptance by changing those around them, but rather by accepting what they could and rejecting what they could not accept. They became stronger because of it.

We do not alter the reality of yesterday to make a reality for today. It’s a lie. There is no need for the healthy mind to do it. We have no reason to feel remorse for slavery. It was part of the past and even Christ didn’t condemn it. It was and now it not. Only the weak-minded, the inept and the overly saccharine have a need to efface the tracks of our past to lay down new tracks.

The irrational creatures who attempt to do so are doing us a disservice. We have a right and a need to understand what shaped our country. Without this information we are—well, 5th graders in the worst public school.

There is no valid reason to expunge the N—word from school texts. It is being done not by benevolent people, but by evil men in search for our minds.

Allan, all human beings (white or not) should feel shame for the period of slavery in this country.  You also speak as though it’s simply the past, as though its impact isn’t still felt today: “It was and now [is] not.”  What a frightening sentiment—and one that is wholly unsupported by data, which conclusively demonstrates racism’s continuing impact on education, housing, employment, etc.  This kind of statement, however, does surely help us to pretend that racism is dead and those who speak of it are just a bunch of whiners.  It doesn’t take self-hatred to acknowledge that humans have repeatedly enslaved and oppressed one another (nor does it take a mind that’s “weak” or “inept” or “overly saccharine”).  Acknowledging the past doesn’t mean we slap each other with racist language.  There’s a really good reason not to include the n-word in school texts or any other part of our communities: it’s incredibly offensive to many.  I mentioned above how dangerous it is to distill conversations about censorship to yes/no, black/white answers—your response ably demonstrates how problematic such responses are.

There is a time and a place for everything. Read Huckleberry Finn at home aloud to children and explain inappropriate things. There are plenty of books proper to read aloud in school.

Grace, what a self-righteous and judgmental statement you make when you say ...” all human beings (white or not) should feel shame for the period of slavery in this country.” The rational for that statement is what? An admonishment by Christ? Can’t be that because there are none. In fact, Christ admonished slaves to be obedient to their masters. St. Paul insisted that a slave return to his master. What then? It is merely your very personalized perceptions. With nothing external to you, you demand that everyone think like you. Very Obama-like.
Slavery is not objectively evil. It was a product of an age that is past. It is unjust to force innocent people to pay for what took place even before they were born. The idea of reparation for slavery is pushed by the morally defunct Democratic Party as another way to use deceit to gain votes.
You use the word racist like a slogan. Something without inherent meaning defined merely by what you want it to mean when casting stones. You make a serious mistake by equating racial hatred with white people. Perhaps you’ve lived a sheltered life. Take my word for it, it is plentiful in many other segments of society.
You offered the unsubstantiated opinion that slavery continues to harm black people. Well, no, you did a slight of hand. You substituted “racism” for slavery. Thus making racism a white-only sin, which is an absurdity. (Perhaps a study of black dictatorships in Africa would be eye-opening.)
There is real data that is not anecdotal or merely perceived that black school children do well when placed in a disciplined learning environment. Strangely this king of placement is opposed by very many liberals.

Would you rather have your kids learn about the n-word from Huck Finn or from a rap song?  Literature gives us an education of the harsh world in a much general way than the harsh world would.

Gentler not general

Allan Wafkowski, I must point out that slavery is decidedly *not* a thing of the past—now we refer to it as human trafficking.  Over 20 million people worldwide are forced into labor or the sex industry (including tens of thousands right here in the US).  So the discussions brought up in Huckleberry Finn are still very much with us.  I’m not sure what you meant when you said “slavery is not objectively evil,” so perhaps you could clear that up.

With that said, one of the most difficult books I’ve tried to read aloud to my kids is The Wind in the Willows.  And I’m reading The Secret Garden alound to my 6-year-old right now, and some parts of it are a bit of a slog for her ears—so we stop and make sure she understands what just happened. 

If you’re looking for recommendations for classics, check E.D. Hirsch’s lists of reading for each grade level—you’ll find lots of great material!

Howard Pyle:
Otto of the Silver Hand
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood
The Story of King Arthur and His Knights

J.R.R. Tolkien:
The Lord of the Rings

Robert Louis Stevenson:
Kidnapped
Treasure Island

Anything by G.A. Henty, but in particular:
For the Temple: A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem
With Lee in Virginia
Winning His Spurs: A Tale of the Crusades
By Right of Conquest: Or, With Cortez in Mexico

Louisa May Alcott:
Little Women

Johann David Wyss:
The Swiss Family Robinson

Daniel Defoe:
Robinson Crusoe

Robert Hugh Benson:
Come Rack! Come Rope!
Lord of the World

Anything by Shakespeare, but these I would get a professional narration in order to do the characters justice.

Scott O’Dell:
Island of the Blue Dolphins

Racial relations and tensions are complex and there is no one size fits all answer.  I don’t have the energy today for these comments so I’m outta here.

Half Magic
The Boy
Watership Down
Black Beauty
A Little Princess
The Teran Wanderer Series
The BFG
The Percy Jackson Series

These are some of the ones that have been more or less successful, plus the LOTR, Hobbit, Lion, Witch Wardrobe, Harry Potter and Call it Courage.  I think it is with all things, the age that determines the success, and yes, sentences like that paragraph you quoted, can kill the audience.  (We always skip the Tom Bombadill section of LOTR).

We listened to “the Princess and the Goblin” years ago on CD from the library. The story was wonderful and I think the children really enjoyed it, but the narrator drove me crazy. He had this New York accent (like Long Island or the Bronx) and was kind of nasal. It was so hard to listen to for me. But I had never read it before and I did love the story.

Wow, Allan—my mistake.  I thought I was conversing with a true Christian, one who wouldn’t need a direct admonishment from Christ to recognize the evils of slavery and would see the enslavement and oppression of others as quintessentially opposed to Christian values (not to mention the Church’s social teachings).  Hey, maybe Jesus actually enjoyed being enslaved as a Jew under Roman authority, right?  You’re online right now so I think it’s certainly possible for you to research the legitimate connections between American slavery and contemporary racism.  I know racists hate to be called out like this, but your denial of slavery as inherently evil and your denial of racism’s pervasiveness identify you as a racist, who by definition doesn’t rely on reason and logic when forming opinions.  No point in continuing the dialogue with you then.  I will, however, close with these twin points: Nancy above is right—human trafficking is widespread and wholly foul.  And congrats—two messages in and you resort to calling me an Obama-follower.  How expected.

When self-absorbed liberals get mad they get silly. I can only suggest that you mistook the R in the acronym NCR to mean Reporter. No use to argue with that mob; they are just too judgmental and irrational.

When I taught To Kill A Mockingbird, we read aloud, and I couldn’t bring myself to say the N word.  I told the kids I was brought up to believe it was wrong, and I just couldn’t say it.

Nancy, the word slavery as I used it is defined as an institution within a government that is sanctioned by lawful authority. Human trafficking is an imprecise term that can mean anything from 13 year olds working in a Chinese factory to Saudi princes sexually abusing hired help. Some of these acts are evil and some not. Some are merely inherent to their culture, and not at all evil.

You ask what I mean by my statement that slavery is not objectively evil. I mean just that. As a Catholic, I accept the judgements of Christ. Christ spoke explicitly about slavery and did not condemn it.

This discussion began with the question of whether classics should be adapted for current usage by cutting words. Some think that every reference that can be potentially considered a slight ought to be expunged. I think that is nonsense. It’s okay for people to be slighted once in a while. If we all have rights it is inevitable that at times ones rights will conflict with the rights of another. We are not on earth to build Utopia, but to obtain heaven. We do what we can to help others get there with us. I suspect many liberal Catholics have lost sight of the goal because they are too busy building the perfect society on earth, using their own lights about what that means. God save us from self-righteous liberals.

This Lent, I’ll pray that readers here will 1) not require Christ to have spoken directly on every immoral practice (you know, like abortion) to know what’s immoral, 2) read up on human trafficking (which is different than sexual trafficking and which, unlike Allan’s assertion, isn’t ever simply a cultural practice that’s acceptable), and 3) refuse to engage in political baiting.  Viewing slavery in all its forms as an abomination isn’t relegated to one political party—stop disparaging conservatives by painting them as racists.

I’m not so sure that I agree on the point of Huckleberry Fin not needing to be censored for young readers.  While I would never approve of taking the hacksaw to language like that in a book written for adults (or read primarily by adults, as the case may be), Huck Finn is a major part of elementary school reading lists in many areas, so there are levels of complexity to the issue.  The “N-word” has developed, over the years, to be one of the most offensive linguistic expressions in American English, and the fact that there might be concern from some parents is understandable (particularly in the southeast, where racism is still a very real problem, although thankfully a less socially accepted one than in the past).  For some children, the language would probably not be problematic, but it is an area where I can understand why prudence might lead a parent to want to avoid the uncensored version, depending on the child’s age and maturity level.

Chris, I think you’re right about the child’s age and maturity level.  My two oldest sons have read Huckleberry Finn (which also contains other difficult subject matter, e.g. Huck’s violent alchoholic father, etc.) but they are 11 and 12 and we felt they were ready for it and the discussions that would follow.  RE: Allan’s idea that slavery can be inherent to a culture, or sanctioned by lawful authority/government and therefore not be evil . . . again, I’m not sure what you mean there.  Many things have been sanctioned by our government or other authorities that were evil: the Tuskeegee syphilis experiments, abortion, forced sterilizations of mentally ill people, and more.  So I think that standard doesn’t hold up.

I think it’s most interesting how many classic “children’s” stories are not and were not intended for children.  They were written for adults, thus the difficult language and subject matter.  I homeschool so I am able to decide what my children will read and they will not read Huckleberry Finn or plenty of other classic novels schools and parents give kids.  I think Huckleberry Finn is upper high school level.  The same is true for many classic movies.  Just because old movies aren’t as raunchy as modern movies doesn’t mean they are children’s movies.  Especially movie musicals - so many think that if it’s a musical made before 1970 it’s fine for children.  NOT! They were made for adults and they are appropriate for adults.  So give children what is appropriate for their age and you won’t have this censorship problem so often.

Sigh…  I’m coming at this from a totally different angle now, as child #5 is moderately dyslexic.  As we move up into slightly more advanced literature, he is really struggling with complex sentence and paragraph formations.  My usual standby is listen and read at the same time (thank you for Books on CD!!!) but even that doesn’t always work.  I’ve gotten to the point now where, so help me, I provide him with a summary of the chapter first, which he reads, and then goes on to read/listen to the actual chapter.  It seems to be the only way to provide him with a mental framework that he can “hang” the more complex text and structure on.  You MUST understand how much the book-lover in me HATES HATES HATES anything resembling Cliff Notes.  Yet here we are.

Margaret, I’m something of a purist myself, but having a child with disabilities has changed my perspective as well.  I’ve had to modify my expectations about a whole host of things regarding cognitive and emotional development, discipline, and just what it means to be a father.  As long as I realize that fatherhood is not in the abstract, or necessarily related to my own experiences as a child, or something textbook that can be followed throught to “success,” I’m happier, he’s happier, our home is more peaceful - and the lessons are getting learned.  When I throw out the “ought,” and engage him as he is, it’s deeply satisfying for both of us.  I discover what being a dad is all about.

MM, I have to laugh, because I’m always finding subtexts, even in children’s media.  It’s hard to imagine that movies were made for adults, even in the golden age of cinema.  High thrill indeed to experience the subtlety and verbal art that was involved when “the naked truth” was not quite so naked.

We’re not big moviegoers anymore, but I was shocked at the adult overtone to the Cars II movie.  My son was mesmerized, and has viewed the dvd to the point of annihilation, so I’m hoping that there’s no outright satanic messages in there.  You can never be sure.

Besides, Margaret, are you telling me you never consulted the scene summaries in your Folgers Shakespeare?  For the last 10 years of my undergraduate education, I never read more than a preface or author’s introduction.  Everything I know about Friedrich Neitsche I learned from Thomas Mann.  I saved myself a lot of Shopenhauer by reading Will Durant.  My younger bro is still teasing me about “Everything Aristotle.”  (He gave my copy to his 10 year old son.)  I tried to impress my journalism prof by translating Ibn Sin into Avincenna.  I failed the course.  Even with my accounting books, all I ever really looked at was the graphical illustrations.  (Pathetic, I know.)  I justify it by telling myself that we’re living in a multimedia age, but secretly I’m deeply shamed.  This is no world for purists, Margaret.  We’re all realists now.

Growing up, we had a little grocery store in the nearest town that had a reading corner for children to use while their moms shopped.They had a large selection of Illustrated Classics comic books. That was my introduction to classic lit.I think it was a great idea.
(I believe they’ve been republished since.)

Oooh, no, Matt, I was actually one of the weirdos who just *read* the Shakespeare.  I don’t remember there being any summaries, actually.  My edition did have a wildly handy running glossary, which I consulted regularly, but I pretty much just read it through.  The one time I remember WISHING for a summary, but being too lazy to go find it in a real bookstore, was reading the Purgatorio in college, a book that I now really want to go back and re-read in the Esolen translation.  All this translates into, I’m a reading geek, which is why the whole dyslexia thing has been a tough, but very edifying, pill to swallow.

Margaret, I read through Dante a few times in my long history of otiosity, but not being a scholar I can’t really recommend a version.  I did notice that reading it with the gloss is a whole different experience than just reading it for the poetry straight up.  I recently secured a translation by Longfellow that’s blissfully oblivious to the canonical strictures of modern versification, and so lends itself to reading per se.

Speaking of poetry, I can appreciate how having a dyslexic child can move an intensely literary person like yourself off-center.  If you’ll pardon this observation, God can have an ironic sense of humor sometimes.  Of course if he positioned accordingd to my druthers, I’d be sitting on a dock of the bay, watching the tide roll away… wasting time.  Maybe it’s a good thing he’s in charge.  Thanks for your comment!