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Inappropriate parts: Gr8 book. Spinoff Harry Potter thread
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allrgymama




 
 
    
 

Post Sat, Jul 19 2014, 11:42 pm
Kissing/ making out
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dee's mommy




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Jul 20 2014, 12:39 am
To answer the original question, I have read all the Harry Potter books, but I was an adult when they came out. I never thought they were for young children, and in my opinion, I would reserve it for older readers. I think Fifth grade (age ten and eleven) is too young.

I don't know what I will do when my child gets to the point when she may show an interest in it.


The teenage dating scene in Harry Potter is introduced as early as the second book. (One of the character's older siblings is in a dating situation, and it is briefly menionted towards the end of the book, because the younger sibling had caught older sibling kissing their dating companion. Basically, as the books progress,and the main characters get older, this aspect of life becomes more prominent in the books (though not the main storyline.) This reflects the secular world. Depending on how you feel about that is the answer to whether or not to "let" your children read the book.

I personally don't like the idea of cutting out pages or blacking out passages with a marker (though some parents find that useful to do.) It seems to me that children/ teenagers will find a way to the original if they like.

I liked someone's answer here when they categorized books as "Yes, no, not yet."

All I can say is be very prepared in discussing with your children what they are reading, so that you can input and reinforce your hashkafah as far as this book is concerned.
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amother
Tan


 

Post Wed, Mar 25 2015, 8:44 pm
Hi.. just wondering.. I am going to allow my son to read the fourth book but I would like to black out the few innapropriate parts.. Here's the issue: I don't want to go through the whole book now in order to find those parts! Is there a website that specifies inappropriate pages or do any of you know already which pages include kissing and such?
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marina




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Mar 25 2015, 8:48 pm
why yes there is amother.

I'm always upset by this link, probably more than it warrants. But you will find it useful.

https://rebeccaklempner.files......2.pdf

the page you are looking for is p.200
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marina




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Mar 25 2015, 8:55 pm
amother wrote:
My children's school alters books, including Green Eggs and Ham . Every mention of the word "ham" in the book, including in the title, was changed to "beef". When the teacher took out "Green Eggs and Beef" to read to the class, my son raised his hand and said, "I thought it was called Green Eggs and Ham", and his teacher said, "I guess it isn't".

I don't even know why they did this. If they felt compelled to change it, I think they should've changed it to "lamb" so it would at least rhyme.

My middle schooler has also commented about the censoring in her schoolbooks. All references to x-mas, the age of the Earth, and small children holding hands are removed from fiction or nonfiction books.

My highschooler was took an AP course on American history. The class was reviewing a practice exam, and one question asked about the Stonewall protests. The teacher hastily instructed them to ignore the question and apologized for not removing it earlier.

Amother because I've discussed this with people I know.


I had my kids in a school like this and then I took them out. In part for this reason. I completely disagree with censoring. It makes me feel like I'm living in North Korea. If a book is too mature for a child, I just don't get it from the library, the end. If the book is generally okay or if the literary value outweighs any issues, then I give them the entire book and I'm pretty sure they won't fall apart when reading about snogging.

I remember my daughter's 4th grade class were reading some book about mice. And two mice met each other and became engaged. This was a relatively minor part of the story, but important, b/c one of the mice got eaten by an owl immediately and the fiance mouse had to grieve etc. But they just blacked out entire paragraphs so that no one could possibly think that two mice met and fell in love and got engaged. I guess it would have been okay with a shadchan mouse, but the author didn't include that.
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tweek




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Mar 25 2015, 9:04 pm
marina wrote:
I had my kids in a school like this and then I took them out. In part for this reason. I completely disagree with censoring. It makes me feel like I'm living in North Korea. If a book is too mature for a child, I just don't get it from the library, the end. If the book is generally okay or if the literary value outweighs any issues, then I give them the entire book and I'm pretty sure they won't fall apart when reading about snogging.

I remember my daughter's 4th grade class were reading some book about mice. And two mice met each other and became engaged. This was a relatively minor part of the story, but important, b/c one of the mice got eaten by an owl immediately and the fiance mouse had to grieve etc. But they just blacked out entire paragraphs so that no one could possibly think that two mice met and fell in love and got engaged. I guess it would have been okay with a shadchan mouse, but the author didn't include that.


Tongue Out too funny! Lets just insert shadchanim into all the love stories. Problem solved!
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amother
Tan


 

Post Wed, Mar 25 2015, 9:14 pm
Thank you Marina for you help!! Especially because you disagree with it.. thank you for helping me despite that!!
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zaq




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Mar 25 2015, 9:41 pm
debsey wrote:
They censored JANE AUSTEN, for Heaven's sake (now they just don't teach it! Confused )


I'll bite. What did they cut out of Pride and Prejudice?
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zaq




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Mar 25 2015, 9:56 pm
allrgymama wrote:
it's okay to give them Harry potter and say 'not jewish ppl may engage in this behavior, but we don't.' and have that be okay.


Please tell me you do not do this. Do you normally make it a practice to lie to your children? Jewish people do do this, if by "this" you mean dating and kissing. Not all, by any means, certainly not most people in your circles, but to tell your kids that Jews don't do this is setting them up for some very insulting and distressing behaviors later on. By which I mean, making remarks like "That girl can't be Jewish, she's wearing sleeveless, that boy can't be Jewish, he's holding hands with a girl" and so on and so forth.

For that matter, if you only knew how many Jewish people, some of whom identify totally as ethnically and culturally Jewish, engage in the occult...Jewish people do a lot of things they should not, but that does not make them not Jewish. Old enough to be able to read a book on the reading level of HP (barring geniuses who are reading Encyclopedia Britannica before they lose their first tooth)is old enough to be taught that.
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zaq




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Mar 25 2015, 10:15 pm
oliveoil wrote:
Am I the only one who cannot think what in the world was wrong with harry potter? I feel like I should go and re-read them now!


Obviously you come from a different community than the people who have a problem with it. I had zero problem with the earlier books. (They were banned in my dc school, but even though I believe in following school rules in school, no school has the right to tell me what my children may or may not do under my roof. So my kids read inhaled the books over and over.)

However, the later books got progressively darker, more graphic, and more disturbing in their presentation of evil. If your kid is an advanced reader beyond his age, the later books may be just a bit much for them to handle without getting nightmares. (Then again, who knows? maybe I was disturbed precisely because I am an adult, and a lot of the darkness might go over a child's head. When I read as an adult the fairy tales I loved as a kid, I am appalled by the violence and evil, all of which completely escaped me when I was a kid, and cannot imagine why anyone would tell a child such tales.) My kids read them all anyway and it didn't seem to have done them any harm, but they were older than six when the books were published.

For me, the disturbing part was the graphic detail of evil and the sense that evil was winning, not the mild boy-girl stuff.
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marina




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Mar 25 2015, 10:50 pm
amother wrote:
Thank you Marina for you help!! Especially because you disagree with it.. thank you for helping me despite that!!


You are welcome and I hope your son enjoys the book Smile
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debsey




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Mar 25 2015, 11:12 pm
zaq wrote:
I'll bite. What did they cut out of Pride and Prejudice?


I don't know - they cut it out! I'm guessing any reference to Darcy noticing anything attractive about Elizabeth...... I honestly can't imagine what, but I remember, there were passages missing so they found SOMETHING to cut.
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zaq




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Mar 26 2015, 12:28 am
debsey wrote:
I don't know - they cut it out! I'm guessing any reference to Darcy noticing anything attractive about Elizabeth...... I honestly can't imagine what, but I remember, there were passages missing so they found SOMETHING to cut.


Well, didn't you go back and reread it as an adult? Why not? (Speaking as a person who has read it, oh, maybe six or seven times starting from the age of ten, when I understood none of it (I was desperate for something to read and that was all I could find in my uncle's house that was not either political history or in Yiddish) up to a few years ago, when as a mother of a daughter of marriageable age I started to have some mild sympathy for Mrs. Bennett.)
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ora_43




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Mar 26 2015, 3:16 am
zaq wrote:
However, the later books got progressively darker, more graphic, and more disturbing in their presentation of evil. If your kid is an advanced reader beyond his age, the later books may be just a bit much for them to handle without getting nightmares. (Then again, who knows? maybe I was disturbed precisely because I am an adult, and a lot of the darkness might go over a child's head. When I read as an adult the fairy tales I loved as a kid, I am appalled by the violence and evil, all of which completely escaped me when I was a kid, and cannot imagine why anyone would tell a child such tales.) My kids read them all anyway and it didn't seem to have done them any harm, but they were older than six when the books were published.

Most really popular kids' books/movies have some really dark themes. It's strange, because like you say kids don't seem to get it on the same level, but they still seem drawn to it, in that they tend to find more "parve" stories boring. (Adults also want interesting stories, but we tend to understand the drama more.)

Like Mulan. I let my kids watch that, and halfway through I was like "holy **** the male lead came close to killing the female lead. For being a woman. How did I barely notice that before???" and they were like, "haha the dragon is funny."
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amother
Peach


 

Post Thu, Mar 26 2015, 5:06 am
ora_43 wrote:
Most really popular kids' books/movies have some really dark themes. It's strange, because like you say kids don't seem to get it on the same level, but they still seem drawn to it, in that they tend to find more "parve" stories boring. (Adults also want interesting stories, but we tend to understand the drama more.)

Like Mulan. I let my kids watch that, and halfway through I was like "holy **** the male lead came close to killing the female lead. For being a woman. How did I barely notice that before???" and they were like, "haha the dragon is funny."


I think I was 8 or 9 when Disney released Hunchback of Notre Dame. My (non-Orthodox) grandmother was shocked that we had been allowed to see it- I didn't understand at all what her objections were. I only picked up on the s-xual themes when I was maybe 20 or so and rewatched it.
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amother
Chartreuse


 

Post Thu, Mar 26 2015, 5:42 am
"as a mother of a daughter of marriageable age I started to have some mild sympathy for Mrs. Bennett"

that's really funny!! Very Happy

what about encouraging books by Thomas Hardy and Jane Austen and the like? Thomas Hardy was my favorite in high school (maybe I'm a geek) and still is today (secretly). And there "stuff" is not explicitly described. And its great literature, and will expand the mind way more than some of the recent rubbish (not saying HP, just in general). Try Far from the Madding Crowd, I loved it.
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mommy3b2c




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Mar 26 2015, 8:01 am
amother wrote:
I think I was 8 or 9 when Disney released Hunchback of Notre Dame. My (non-Orthodox) grandmother was shocked that we had been allowed to see it- I didn't understand at all what her objections were. I only picked up on the s-xual themes when I was maybe 20 or so and rewatched it.


This reminds me of a funny story with with my five year old son.

He was watching penguins of Madagascar, and king Julian finds an egg and is convinced a baby lemur will hatch from the egg.

Maurice tells king Julian that a lemur can't hatch from an egg because lemurs are mammals. So king Julian asks, "then where do baby lemurs come from?"

To which Maurice replies by whispering in king Julian's ear , and king Julian replies "that's disgusting, stop grossing me out."

Now, clearly, that's a joke for adults. It's supposes to fly right over the kids heads. But my 5 year old asked me what Maurice whispered. I told him I didn't know, because it was whispered.

To which my son replied: "did Maurice tell king Julian that mammals come from their mommies belly?"

I laughed pretty hard. I also realized that kids pick up on a lot of things that they're not supposed to.
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saw50st8




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Mar 26 2015, 8:48 am
I am so thankful I wasn't censored as a kid.
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Chayalle




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Mar 26 2015, 9:58 am
This cracks me up. After DD read HP, we were playing bananagrams and she did the word snogging. I asked her if she knew what it means, and she had no idea! (she's also a bit of a clueless personality. She's the type that skims over those parts and it doesn't even enter her head....my other DD is more the type to ask a million questions and notice every single detail....know thy child....)

Anyway - I explained the word, and advised her to never do a word unless she knows the definition.


As for books that are generally ok - for my girls, I waited a bit longer and let them read it once I felt they were ready to handle it. More like 7th grade or so.....but if I had a child that would enjoy it at a younger age and really needs reading material, I'd probably do what Debsey did - discuss it, maybe black some of it out.

BTW - I loved Narnia, read them when I was about 10 or 11, and had no idea they were analogous to anything. I thought they were just fantasy.

A friend of mine teaches English in one of the more right-wing high schools in town. She told me the school censored a line about a brother who "lovingly" told his sister something. Sometimes censoring just gets ridiculous.

I read tons of classics as a teen, uncensored. Really, I think that's the age where the resentment would set in at censoring - not so much at a younger age.

My high school English teacher - whom I dearly love - most popular teacher in my school (boy am I giving myself away here, anyone who went there will know if they don't yet.......) was once lamenting to my sister that the school has cut out every good book she used to do (like, they don't do To Kill a Mockingbird anymore, they don't watch All My Sons....). My sister said all the books they do revolve around murder, to which she responded "What's wrong with murder? No knees....".
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youngishbear




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Mar 26 2015, 10:50 am
mommy2b2c wrote:
This reminds me of a funny story with with my five year old son.

He was watching penguins of Madagascar, and king Julian finds an egg and is convinced a baby lemur will hatch from the egg.

Maurice tells king Julian that a lemur can't hatch from an egg because lemurs are mammals. So king Julian asks, "then where do baby lemurs come from?"

To which Maurice replies by whispering in king Julian's ear , and king Julian replies "that's disgusting, stop grossing me out."

Now, clearly, that's a joke for adults. It's supposes to fly right over the kids heads. But my 5 year old asked me what Maurice whispered. I told him I didn't know, because it was whispered.

To which my son replied: "did Maurice tell king Julian that mammals come from their mommies belly?"

I laughed pretty hard. I also realized that kids pick up on a lot of things that they're not supposed to.


Including that babies coming from mommies' bellies is somehow disgusting. Sad
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