Free thinking books for kids?

Ickle Magoo

Dades wrote: »

I only know him as Iain M Banks - and yes he does rock!

I spent a good part of last year reading his "Culture" novels.

Yeah, I'm not sure why but his fiction books (over half his collection) have been penned under Iain Banks - and his science fiction books Iain M Banks...maybe it sounds more science fictioney?! :pac:

minusorange

What a sad thread. Do you honestly believe you are encouraging 'freethinking' when giving a child a book critical of religion. These books were written with a certain agenda, and by giving these books, you yourself have a certain agenda. This isn't freethinking. I agree with the earlier post which suggested basic nature/science books, or maybe history. I have visited this forum on a number of occasions, and was always greeted with interesting discussions and debates. How sad this whole thing has become. Keep kids away from the church, don't let them be thought religion in school and give them an honest answer to an honest question. That should be enough. Let them make up their own mind. You're not doing that.

Mark Hamill

minusorange wrote: »

What a sad thread. Do you honestly believe you are encouraging 'freethinking' when giving a child a book critical of religion.

What books are you talking about?

minusorange wrote: »

These books were written with a certain agenda, and by giving these books, you yourself have a certain agenda. This isn't freethinking. I agree with the earlier post which suggested basic nature/science books, or maybe history. I have visited this forum on a number of occasions, and was always greeted with interesting discussions and debates. How sad this whole thing has become. Keep kids away from the church, don't let them be thought religion in school and give them an honest answer to an honest question. That should be enough. Let them make up their own mind. You're not doing that.

Why is that enough? Why is keeping kids away from churches and religion in school not indicitive of a certain agenda, but giving them certain books is? If you want them to make up their own mind, you should encourage them to go to different churches and read books with different biases, should you not?

Ickle Magoo

minusorange wrote: »

What a sad thread. Do you honestly believe you are encouraging 'freethinking' when giving a child a book critical of religion.

Errr, yes...

Freethought is a philosophical viewpoint that holds that opinions should be formed on the basis of science, logic, and reason, and should not be influenced by authority, tradition, or any other dogma.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freethought

Dades

minusorange, I'd consider your comments a little overreactive.

The His Dark Materials trilogy was the first children's book ever awarded the Whitbread Book of the Year award - not because of some anti-church agenda, but because it's a fantastic piece of writing. (I wish I was 13 so I could enjoy them as they were intended again).

That it contains some 'controversial' themes (and that's all they are) is a bonus, given that it is intended as a present for a child that has just undergone final indoctrination into an organisation they probably had no choice but to be part of.

Mark Hamill

minusorange wrote: »

What a sad thread. Do you honestly believe you are encouraging 'freethinking' when giving a child a book critical of religion.

Going on the assumption that you where referring to His Dark Materials, I think that you will find, if you ever read it, that it is not so much critical of religion as critical of religious organisations (and despite what religious organisations would have you believe, these are not the same thing), particularly when organisations lead to the oppression of people and ideas that dont agree with them.

Undergod

robindch wrote: »

As Ickle Magoo says, he's a Scottish author who's produced some of the most thoughtful, not to say coolest, science-fiction and non-scifi literature in the last 30 years.

IMHO, his best stuff is in Consider Phlebas, The Player of Games, The Bridge, Use of Weapons and Inversions.

IMNSHO, Banks leaves Pullman in the dust, especially with respect to humor which Pullman avoids as though toxic.

All this stuff is great. His non "M" stuff can be a bit contemporary to the time it's written in, which is odd at times, but it's still great literature. And Use of Weapons... just wow. Use of Weapons is among the best novels I have ever read.

MrPudding

Undergod wrote: »

All this stuff is great. His non "M" stuff can be a bit contemporary to the time it's written in, which is odd at times, but it's still great literature. And Use of Weapons... just wow. Use of Weapons is among the best novels I have ever read.

I had a very strange experience with reading Ian M Banks. Someone gave me one of the Culture books and I started reading it, read a couple of pages and hated it and put it down. About a year later I pick it up again and was hooked in half a page. Did not put it down until it was finished. Weird.

MrP

bnt

As a kid, I never read any books critical of religion, but I clearly remember one book I was given when I was about 10: The Exploding Universe by Nigel Henbest. This was my introduction to Cosmology: big ideas and plenty of cool pictures. Compared with that, religion seemed rather ... small.

allisbleak

Mark Hamill wrote: »

Why is that enough? Why is keeping kids away from churches and religion in school not indicitive of a certain agenda, but giving them certain books is? If you want them to make up their own mind, you should encourage them to go to different churches and read books with different biases, should you not?

You should just point out to kids that ALL RELIGION is rubbish.

Canis Lupus

Slight thread resurrection but just finished reading Nation which is probably ok for an older child to read.

It's funny in typical Pratchett style and just a really nice story.. Can't recommend it enough.

strobe

Canis Lupus wrote: »

Slight thread resurrection but just finished reading Nation which is probably ok for an older child to read.

It's funny in typical Pratchett style and just a really nice story.. Can't recommend it enough.

Loved Nation, best Pratchett book I've read in a long while. I like the disc world books but I wish he'd write independantly from the series more often. Good Omens and the gnome books along with Nation would all make my top ten of the stuff he's done.

Daftendirekt

strobe wrote: »

Loved Nation, best Pratchett book I've read in a long while. I like the disc world books but I wish he'd write independantly from the series more often. Good Omens and the gnome books along with Nation would all make my top ten of the stuff he's done.

The gnome books are good then?

I have them lying around somewhere but never got around to reading them...

iUseVi

Daftendirekt wrote: »

The gnome books are good then?

I have them lying around somewhere but never got around to reading them...

IMO it took him a while to get into stride with them, I wasn't too hot on the first one (it was for children though), but the later ones are great.

Daftendirekt

Yeah, think I actually started the first one a while ago, but it didn't do much for me. I'll have to dig it out again now. Pfft. Thanks A+A.

strobe

Daftendirekt wrote: »

The gnome books are good then?

I have them lying around somewhere but never got around to reading them...

Well it was years ago when I read them but I loved them.

Obligatory quotes:

- "Do you know, humans think the world was made by a sort of big human?"
- "Get away?"
- "It took a week."
- "I expect it had some help, then,' said Dorcas.

"SCIENCE: A way of finding things out and then making them work. Science explains what is happening around us the whole time. So does RELIGION, but science is better because it comes up with more understandable excuses when it is wrong. There is a lot more Science than you think."
-- From A Scientific Encyclopedia for the Enquiring Young Nome by Angalo de Haberdasheri

"The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it."

L31mr0d

Just another bump for Calvin & Hobbes. Was clearing out a cupboard and a Calvin & Hobbes annual fell open on this strip. It still amazes me how something which meant little to me as a child (this one was a rather boring strip to read back then) can take on a completely different meaning and depth now that I'm older.