Encourage your kids to read…
Filed under The Mommy Journals • Tagged: Alex, art, books, manga, mythology, painting, reading
… And never tell them that the only things worth reading are those labeled by the high-brows as profound.
Alex reads a lot of manga online. There was a time when I worried that it might affect her reading pattern. Manga — or Japanese comics for the uninitiated — are read from right to left. She assured me she was okay, I trusted her judgment and look where her manga reading has led her.
Because the stories she reads borrow heavily from Japanese, Chinese, Indian and Norse mythology, she is slowly moving on to all that. She now knows terms and concepts that I haven’t heard since all those philosophy classes in college. She’s devouring all the mythology she can get online and I already promised her we’ll buy books as well — as many as she likes although perhaps not all at the same time.
A good story is like a good piece of art. Whether through words or paint or clay or wood, the creator is able to stimulate the mind and the soul even of people he has never met and never will meet. And a real work of art does not need a specific set of rules to make it beautiful and understandable. It simply evokes.
Consider this painting.
I was in the fourth grade when I first saw this image. I didn’t know what it was called, I didn’t know who painted it. But the image was so strong, and provocative, that I found myself interpreting what it could mean without really intending to.
I was in second year in high school when I saw the painting again. It was an elective class, forgot what it was called, but it was mostly about visual and written art. In that class, the image was presented with a lot of information — it was painted by Salvador Dali, it was called The Persistence of Memory, that it meant a lot of things including life, anxiety and even Einstein’s theory of relativity.
As far as I was concerned, imposing those interpretations was limiting our young minds. Instead of allowing us students to look at the painting with an open mind, we were being forced to appreciate it based on accepted standards. Later on, I realized that the teacher, a Miss Santibañez, was just imposing her limited thinking on us. She did not have the capacity to give it an original interpretation, perhaps, she didn’t even know such a thing was possible, so she could only resort to published, and already accepted, interpretations.
Literature is no different. When academics insist that there are stringent standards on what constitutes literature, they set limitations on all of us. They stifle creativity and growth. They put our minds in cages. I wonder how many of them are just like Miss Santibañez — imposing accepted standards simply because they have neither the guts nor the brains to make their own standards and interpretations. Bato-bato sa langit, ang tamaan mabukulan sana.
It is something I do not want to happen to my children. If reading manga, rather than C. S. Lewis, stimulates their minds better to encourage them to explore other forms of creative work, then they should be free to do so.
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We feast everyday!
my mom got me into reading by buying me a lot of fairytale picture books as early as two. unfortunately, i didn’t actually start to read until i was seven (which i understand is pretty late) which might explain the mini-library i have built for the last 13 years.
i totally agree with you. kids should be encouraged to read. it makes them more creative, expands their vocabulary and widens their horizons. well, adults should read too! hehe
that’s why we don’t have television in the house (yet, and much to the dismay of the hubby who was a tv addict prior to meeting me). we have a 1 year 8 months old son and as early as now, i want him to develop a love for reading. i think television (watching too much, anyway) atrophies the mind, especially for the very young. the hubby disagrees. that’s why to have or not to have television is a bone of contention in our house.
however, to keep the peace, i think i’ll have to agree to the hubby purchasing one for his viewing pleasure. he doesn’t like reading. maybe i should encourage him to read manga online. hehehehe
For everyone, anime for the whole family.
TOKYO GODFATHERS
STUDIO GHIBLI COLLECTIONS: Princess Mononoke, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Spirited Away, Whisper of the Heart and The Cat Returns, If You Listen Closely, etc.
Probbably available in your local anime shops. Or you can download them via download portals or watch them through streaming videos. Most of them have relevant slice-of-life takes and very good story telling influenced buy writers of Alice in Wonderland, Heidi of the Alps and so on. Little or none of those unneccessary violence that proliferate most mainstream anime these days…
Now a days instead of reading books on literature Children just prefer to watch them on cable TV or yet hire a DVD on neighboring shops,you can watch Romeo and Juliet or King arthur in the comfort of your living room.When I was young I hate classical music but I learn to like it by watching disney cartoon show on TV.Just what you have said if this is what stimulates their mind so be it.But as a parent we have to guide them as to what kind of movie they are going to watch and watch with them to explain somethings they find hard to understand.
It wasn’t Pepe&Pilar who taught me to read. It was Lamor, Lagim and Wakasan. Yes, komiks. I move on to English with DC & Marvel and graduated to reading books with Alfred Neuman as my teacher.
liz, same here. I think there was at least two generations when fairy tale books were deemed the proper reading materials for young girls.
michelle, you know, we haven’t had cable (satellite, actually) TV in 3 months and it’s amazing how fast Alex has gotten on with her reading without the TV distraction. Of course, we’re consuming DVDs are at alarming rate but movies are much preferable to the muck that TV is full of (read: reality shows and American Idol including clones). If video streaming were faster and we can view news videos comfortably on the ‘net, I won’t have any use for TV at all.
Jin, you mentioned that in a previous comment, I think? Is Tokyo Godfathers for young adults?
BlogusVox, me too. I started with comics. National Bookstore used to sell classics in comics form. I don’t think I would have gone on to read Bronte and Dumas and Hugo later if it hadn’t been for those comics.
Ms. Connie, it’s not just really for young adults. Though kids may not like it very much. May cuss words every now and then.
For everyone (I’m starting to feel like an ad board for anime here):
Also by Satoshi Kon: Paprika, Perfect Blue and Paranoia Agent. As for Gundam anime, I could recommend one though it was released way back in 1989. Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket. It’s focus is on the story, not on the robot. Search n lang po sa Wikipedia for details.
I hope I’m posting some good alternatives para sa mga reality shows, game shows that are so abundant in local tv. I hope everybody enjoys them as much my wife and myself did.
Thanks and more power!
Jin, okay, so more for me than for Alex?
And it’s okay to be an anime ad board. You’re such a great resource for everything anime. So thanks.
I don’t think the academics imposed standards on what constitutes literature. Literature is literature is literature–if you don’t know what it means, get a dictionary.
The academics you might be referring to, they’re not imposing standards; they’re expressing interpretation, something they have because they read the book or had the courage to say they can’t read it. They might have respected your opinion if you finished the damn book and didn’t put the blame on the writer. Readers have responsibilities too, you know.
Hey Q, what book, what writer, huh? What the heck are you talking about huh? Commenters have a responsibility too to understand a blog entry and post only relevant comments. Such a simple thing is beyond you apparently.
Thirtyfive years ago when television was still a glint in the eyes of a child like me, my dad invested his wages in buying on installment basis a set of Grolier’s Book of Knowledge and Popular Science, together with that they gave him a set of books such as Call of the Wild, Heidi, Little Men, Little Women, Tales of Hawthorne, Prince and the Pauper, Black Beauty, and others,
These were stories which spurred the imagination of a child to read more, and we progressed to reading Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Dana Girls, Bobbsey Twins and more others of the same genre.
And since my dad loved books of Erle Stanly Gardner, we siblings learned about all the exploits of Perry Mason ogether with Della Street, Sgt. Holcomb and Lt. Tragg and his detective Paul Drake.
Growing older we read books by Stephen King, Robert Ludlum, Agatha Christie, Tom Clancy and many more. The world started shrinking before our eyes, because we could imagine with our minds eyes what was written.
In these day and age, i loved it when my nephew was inspired to read Harry Potter rather than watch the movies, which he said were not true to the real books story.
Its really a different feeling turning the pages one by one, and not being able to put the book down until you have finished the story you are reading, even though its two a.m. in the morning.
Modern day inventions have taken the power to imagine from the child,
Oh I spent a few years devouring Erle Stanley Gardner too.
Re Stephen King, Robert Ludlum, Agatha Christie, Tom Clancy: The high brows don’t consider them intelligent reading but who cares about the high brows, right? Loved Agatha Christie’s “And then there were none” and “They came to Baghdad.”
Pirkash, like your dad, I grew up reading almost all Perry Mason books by Erle Stanley Gardner. We did not have electricity and TV in the province during that time, so I end up reading those books in my spare time between homework and housework.
It is so true that academia is too binding when it comes to literature, art, music, really anything that isn’t concrete. I remember being so outraged in fourth grade when a teacher told me that my interpretation of what a poem meant was wrong. It certainly didn’t motivate me to read more poems, I can tell you that! I was a kid who really wanted to please, so I veered towards math, where everything was either right or wrong. Something tells me that Einstein wouldn’t have come up with the interpretation that was in the teacher’s manual, either. Good for you for allowing your little one to venture out!
Connie, you are right the high brows don’t think much about the books i mentioned, but do you know that in the books of Agatha Christie, specially the ones where Miss Marples is the detective, a person reading those books will get more insight by being more observant and logical, i liked the ones where Miss Marples was the detective more than the ones of Hercule Poirot.
But what is most important in the end is making the child sit and read, ones he’/she gets the itch, it then gets into his/her skin.
And a world of wonder opens up.
Jane, re “Something tells me that Einstein wouldn’t have come up with the interpretation that was in the teacher’s manual, either.”
Oh, I love that observation. LOL So, so true.
pirkash, like I said, the good ones simply evoke.
If I were to ask Ms. Santibañez how that painting could be interpreted as something related to Einstein’s theory of relativity, I’m sure she’ll faint just thinking about it.
When I was in college, I too remember a teacher in Humanities asking us to write or paint anything that would “interpret” the instrumental music she was playing. I am not good with painting so I just wrote a very short story instead. When our papers were returned, she revealed the “correct” interpretation and gave high scores to those who were able to get it “right.” I was so frustrated because I was one of the many people who did not get it “right.” I didn’t even know how she rated our papers. Can she blame us if that was how we interpreted it? tsk. tsk. tsk.
Jon, she was a spinster, you know. I wonder what she would have said if my interpretation of the painting was “grief triggered by menopause”. hehehe
Vianney, I was going to say we probably had the same Humanities teacher but yours was a “she”; mine was a “he” who made us “interpret” the architecture of the Cultural Center of the Philippines. And he said that my interpretation that it was nothing but Imelda’s excesses was wrong. HAHAHAHA
One way to get children to read is to but them books and read to them when they are still young. Sure, the advent of technology has changed the way things are, but reading is still not just a hobby (parang answer sa slumbook) but a part of our learning experiences.
I love reading and though my reading is mostly confined to the above mentioned Ludlum and Clancy books ( i have a collection of their works) I mostly read books that make me think about solving puzzles and crimes,
I am not particularly fond of self-improvement books and those inspirational books, I don’t know why, they seem to be about steps on telling me how to live my life. Bakit?
Julie, re “I am not particularly fond of self-improvement books and those inspirational books”
Hay, neither am I. I especially loathe those “how to get rich in 10 steps” kind of thing. Book ba yun?
As the author Stephenie Meyer said, “There are no children’s books or adults’ books, only good books and bad books. Everyone should get to read the good ones.”
connie,”you are not fond of inspirational books”,its quite strange but I find many of your articles,photos and bloggers comments inspirational and I do enjoy reading them…..
Why, thank you Ed. Perhaps that’s because I only aim to share rather than claim to be an authority.
Bakit ba bancrupt at di nalilibro ang mga comics and most other literature in the philippines other than pocketbooks tulad ng japan,china and amerca which makes their literature published and also why are some books here are stopped to be published and bakit ba yung darna and our legendary comics ay di na libro,yan ang dahilan kung bakit nag-aamerica ang mga writers sa pilipinas,walang mga publishers and no one likes to read….oh well,i am a beginer comics creator ito ang pen name q oh well bakit ba..
But there is no such thing as an “original interpretation.” Also, the word “stimulates” can be interpreted in different ways. And it is not just the academe that sets limitations: so too do mass entertainment (through “manga”) and business, both of which, not surprisingly, work together in terms of profit margin to offer to people what they will obviously accept easily, such as media with fewer words and more pictures and color.
There is, in fact, a wrong way of interpreting things. For example, if you insist that everything you read has something to do with baseball, then you may think that you’re being “creative” but you will not be able to prove your point using reason.
no such thing as original interpretation? LOL
If you undervalue yourself that much we’re not obliged to follow suit.
If teachers are only expected to limit stimulation to what is safe and acceptable then education is a failure.
There is no wrong interpretation but only wrong understanding because. Causality. Look it up. One is only an effect of the other.
Finally profit can be achieved by allowing free thought or not. Diffierent ball game.
Gosh I must be really bored to tears here in the hospital considering I bothered to respond at all
Yes, there is no such thing as an original interpretation. And I’m not stating something about myself but a fact. For more details, read Bloom’s essay on the anxiety of inlfuence.
Stimulation coming from different sources and with no direction is a failure. Teachers, which include parents who, for example, control children’s television viewing habits, give direction to that stimulation through limits.
An interpretation can involve understanding. That’s why a wrong interpretation exists. Otherwise, anything can be about anything. That’s illogical.
Profit cannot be achieved by “allowing free thought or not.” Rather, profit is gained by predictions on human behavior and directing resources to exploit those predictions. It’s part of business. It’s not a different ball game, as seen in your example concerning manga. It is a popular medium because by default the human senses are attracted to pictures than to words. Media corporations exploit that reality by focusing more on Hollywood movies, comic books, video games, and television shows. That is why pop media dominates much of people’s lives.
Thus, what you call freedom isn’t so.
You’re doing exactly what I so abhor about some academics — that we interpret the world according to you.
Puhleezzz
but comparing philippines to america or japan our media is more restricted i believe and there is less publications in our country…it’s one of the things i hate,not all comic or books wheteher in any country are created for profit there are manga/comics and books created because they really want to create and to relieve the stresses and agony of the creators. that’s the truth…
I used to love reading when I was a kid but sadly since technology crept up into the scene, I got hook into tv and internet. But I’m slowly going back to my old habits and the book that really got me hook on reading was Veronika decides to die by Paulo Coehlo.
The comments here really portrays that literature is really anyones interpretation. This is how you perceived it as a person and no one can tell you otherwise. I’m also frustrated to my recent prof. in literature since as you say Ms. Connie, they imposed their own interpretations in literature and what I find odd is that they do not understand or just appreciate what I said. It is my own point of view at that moment and time. LOL!
Aaahhh, teachers can be such tyrants. I should write a post or two about some really lousy attitudes of teachers. LOL