Chapter Books

First Encounters with Homer

We’ve been revisiting a read-aloud from a few years back: Rosemary Sutcliff’s Black Ships Before Troy: The Story of the Iliad. I reviewed this book when my now-4th-grader was in first grade, and I feel pretty much the same as I did the first time.

What struck me this time was what a strange position my choice of the classical approach to education puts me in at times. On the one hand, I’m pretty choosy about what my children watch on television or what movies they see. I see to it that they’re not exposed to undue violence or language or adult themes. I want them to be children, and to wait till they have more maturity before they have to confront such things. On the other hand, here I am reading them Black Ships Before Troy — a beautifully written, gorgeously illustrated account of a terribly bloody and horrific war — because it’s “a classic.”

There’s Achilles dragging Hector’s dead body behind his chariot. There’s the scene where he runs the queen of the Amazon women through with his spear, then turns and kills her horse with the broken shaft. There’s the account of three Trojans squeezed to jelly by sea monsters. And all of it is because of the infidelity of a beautiful woman and a spoiled, selfish young man.

Stranger still: my daughters absolutely loved it. Yes, they exclaimed in disgust over parts of it. But my first grader, who usually flees the room at the first strain of ominous music when watching a movie, kept asking me at all hours of the day and night to please read another chapter. My fourth grader, who had heard it all before, was drawn like nail to magnet whenever the book was opened. I can’t believe it’s because the violence was appealing to them. Maybe it was the elegance of the narrative voice and the dreamy blue-green pictures of noble men and women. I can easily imagine the tale told among the ancient Greeks to an audience of all ages.

My personal favorite of these two Greek epics has always been The Odyssey. Instead of relentless war, it’s the ultimate seafaring adventure, Odysseus’ dilemmas and decisions seem more interesting, and the homecoming at the end has got to be one of the top five happy endings in all of literature. I’ve never dipped into it before with the kids, other than the cyclops episode. My dilemma has been choosing from among the three children’s versions I know of but have not read myself. I decided to lay them out and let the girls choose: Geraldine McCaughrean’s:

Padraic Colum’s:

(Yes, it’s on my Kindle), or, once again, Rosemary Sutcliff’s:

They chose (not surprisingly!) the latter, and we’re about midway through. Once again they are totally engaged. Though this story too has its disturbing parts, even the land of the dead or Circe turning men into pigs are a refreshing change from the monotony of a decade-long killing spree before the gates of Troy.

So what’s the difference between books like these and certain movies I wouldn’t let my kids see? Books aren’t as visually assaultive a medium, for one thing. For another, these tales furnish the earliest versions of themes and motifs that have been reconfigured in art for centuries; I like to think that they provide a certain ground-floor cultural literacy. Finally, reading happens at a slower pace than film, with more opportunities to stop and talk about what’s happening together, more interaction about the relationship between what we’re reading and what we believe about life, death, ethics, God, and the afterlife. These are big subjects, but not too big for the mind of a child when presented in this format.

If you’re in the market for a children’s introduction to these classic tales, one that gives plenty of opportunity to see the courage and cunning the ancient Greeks valued in a hero, Rosemary Sutcliff’s books have it all: striking prose that doesn’t condescend, wonderful pictures, and plenty of action and adventure.

Visit Hope Is the Word for more Read-Aloud Thursday selections.

11 Comments

  • Amy @ Hope Is the Word

    We’ll be there soon, of course, and I have a few of the same selections. In fact I just got (two copies, inadvertently) of Padraic Collum in the mail and via UPS over the past few days. This is territory I haven’t walked in years and years myself ( and some if it probably ever), so I appreciate this preview. And I agree with you, of course! I’m do glad you linked up today!

  • Janet

    I want to read the other versions of ‘The Odyssey’ myself… I read Colum’s ‘The King of Ireland’s Son’ awhile back, and I think his writing is just gorgeous. I’m curious to see how the three versions compare!

  • H West

    My son- age 14- read Yesterday’s Classics version of the Iliad and the Odyssey. They were some of his favorite reads. No pictures, though. The other thing that’s different about books and movies is that with books, each kid envisions their own images in their head. My kids’ pictures of the grotesque are a far cry from the images that movie producers impose upon our youth (and us, for that matter). A great example of this is ‘The Lord of the Rings’. My 11 year old son is reading it right now and it’s fine. However, there’s no WAY I would let him see the movies. Besides the fact that I want him to read the books first, he has his own vision of what something like the ‘Orks’ look like whereas the movies are way more vulgar than anything he could ever picture in his innocent little mind. Anyway, thanks for the comments on these editions of some classic books.

  • Janet

    Good point… You mention orcs, and I find it’s hard for me to recover what I pictured when I read Tolkien’s tale, now that I’ve seen the movie versions.

  • Alice@Supratentorial

    We loved Black Ships Before Troy. I think the difference is that when reading you control the images in your head. The visual images of violence are much harder to get out of your head than when you hear a story that is disturbing.

    My son also really liked Mary Pope Osborne’s Tales from the Odyssey when we were studying that period.

  • GretchenJoanna

    As you and other commenters have said, it is all in how our minds create images from the text. A child who hasn’t seen gory movies or been present in a real war won’t have much material to work with in conjuring up emotionally charged visuals, and if there is something disturbing to the psyche the mind can also block it out or relegate it to a back room; it’s not forced to accept a picture it can’t handle.

    I was also not pleased at the Rings movies and how the imagined bloody battles took center stage. Even when I read the trilogy to my children, I just summed up the chapter about Shelob for them – I couldn’t bear to read it aloud – but I wonder now if they wouldn’t have been so upset by it as I was, for the reason that they hadn’t seen the same sci-fi movies I had as a child.

  • the Ink Slinger

    “So what’s the difference between books like these and certain movies I wouldn’t let my kids see? Books aren’t as visually assaultive a medium, for one thing.”

    Great line! :)

    It’s amazing how desensitized our culture has become to letting little ones view whatever movies they choose, no matter how violent, profane, or indecent. Children’s innocence is being stripped from them like it’s no big deal. And it’s really sad.

  • Janet

    GJ — I’m thinking we must have seen some of the same movies as children…

    Ink Slinger — it’s ironic isn’t it? In some places in the world, innocence isn’t possible for children. In our privileged country, we’re ending up emulating those places through our popular culture.