It appears that children in the 19th century really lived! Their lives were filled with such adventure. Kipling's Kim left not a stone unturned. The adventure story reminded me of a survey or humanities course on India. I was constantly distracted in the readings because I wanted to know how much of what I was reading was historically accurate or make believe. I found the reading complex and once again thought, "Wow kids were really reading this material." Then I decided to step back and think about the adventure genre today and thought about the The Hunger Games trilogy. I suppose as far as adventure goes, the best stories are able to take the reader to a world they would not otherwise know, while creating new vocabulary, alliances, and understanding of issues seemingly beyond their maturity.
I agree that this read was difficult to get through all at once with my personal lack of knowledge of the history of India and my desire to know more as I was reading and trying to follow the story line got quite complex at times. And again the children reading this lived very different lives than the children of today so this may have been more relatable to them. I started reading many book around the age of 12 that were far beyond my comprehension but still found them very interesting and stimulating.
ReplyDeleteYou make a very good point by bringing up The Hunger games, because if you really think about it that content isn't really suitable for children either. I also found Kim to be too complex for children, but maybe we underestimate the amount of complexity a child can handle. For all we know a child is very capable of understanding complex situations, and learning about these situations early on could possibly even benefit the child in the long run.
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