I still have about twenty essays to grade, but I haven’t let that get in the way of planning a day of fun activities for my girls and I, and I won’t let it get in the way of knocking out a quick Sunday-morning post either.
Recently, Sophie came home from school talking about a book they were reading in class, about a princess named Sara Crewe, and I experienced a jolt of instant recognition. “You’re reading A Little Princess
But the more we talked about it, the more dismayed I got. Turns out, what they are reading is a severely abridged version in their reading textbook, one that not only eliminates piles of minor characters (Lavinia, Becky, Lottie, Miss Amelia) but that also sanitizes the names of the characters that are left. Ermengarde becomes Erma, and Melchisedec becomes Melvin. We talked more about it, and they have learned a fair amount of vocabulary and report back some of the major events in the book and what they meant. “Sara’s father dies when she is still really young,” Sophie said, “and that’s so sad.”
“It is,” I answered, “but when they told you the news, did you even care that much about Sara or what happened to her?”
They both shrugged, and I shuddered.
So we got out my old copy–which I had actually tried to read to them a few years ago, and they had rejected as “too sad”–and began to read it at nights. They are totally hooked–hanging on every word, begging for more pages, asking questions and comparing impressions. We have really been enjoying reading it together, in a way that we haven’t since we read the Harry Potter books together, I think. Next I think we’ll tackle The Secret Garden (Tasha Tudor illustrations)
I understand the idea behind reading excerpts and not entire books in the lower grades (grudgingly), but truncating such a wonderful book so ruthlessly? Disappointing, to say the least.
Related articles
- A Little Princess (ejsbookshelf.wordpress.com)
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- Riches to Rags to Riches – The Story of a Princess (ssheidi.wordpress.com)
Oh, I LOVE A Little Princess — glad your girls are enjoying it. I taught it in a children’s lit college course a few years ago, and the college students mostly didn’t know the book and mostly really liked it as well.
WN, how did you deal with the Oriental/Lascar character? I’m not sure how to handle him yet when we get to that part in the book.
I see no reason to read excerpts ever, unless they are informational and that is all the information you need. If students aren’t able to read a whole book, they should read whole books they can read – or short stories, poems, or articles – and read the whole book in question when they are ready. I feel strongly about this!
Becca, I completely support your strong feelings about it–this abridging is just horrible!
Abridging be evil.
We found this even in Peter Rabbit. It used to read “the sparrows implored him to exert himself”, but now it reads something like, “Hurry Peter, hurry”.
Tom–don’t get me started on the deterioration of vocabulary in the general public, and therefore in our literature.
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