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The Bad Beginning
September 2024: Sad
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[BWF] The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket 4 stars
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I read this one with my son when he was young. I think his generation can handle a lot more disturbing content than I could at the same age - maybe due to what they see on the internet/tv/movies/video games?
Didn't any of you see Bambi at a very young age? The mother's death is dark! As are other parts of the story. And I was definitely a single digit age when I saw it. In fact a number of Disney classic cartoons have real darkness in them - because Walt believed children not only could handle it, but needed to learn about it and cope with it to mature and face life.Most kids love scary stuff - not me - I hid behind the sofa when the Wicked Witch and her flying monkees were due to appear during the annual showing of The Wizard of Oz on network tv. My siblings all lapped it up!
My boys loved these when they first came out - they got the dark humour in the books very quickly. (Perhaps that says something about our family, lol…) I think I read the first couple but I can’t remember much. If we still have them in the cupboard, I may revisit them.
Theresa wrote: "Didn't any of you see Bambi at a very young age? The mother's death is dark! As are other parts of the story. And I was definitely a single digit age when I saw it. In fact a number of Disney class..."Yes, but Bambi terrified me. I was really sensitive as a child and not much has changed, lol.
Good perspective Theresa! I recall being scared watching the beginning of Bambi. The the flying monkeys were terrifying. And....I still watched both of those at every opportunity, along with a bunch of other dark-themed movies.
I saw Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds at a pretty young age and had nightmares for ages.
I still can't watch The Birds! Nor will I read the original story! Another movie that scared me - when I was about 12 -- Robinson Crusoe on Mars. Something about being alone on a planet.... I grabbed my little sister and we went out into the foyer to wait until movie over and Mom came to pick us up again. I also question the planners choosing that movie as the one to show to a bunch of very young kids who were there for the theaters annual Christmas celebration - which always featured gifts, candy and treats, Santa, some short Disney cartoons and a full feature film. In other years it was Disney movies like Parent Trap. I just thought of something ... wonder if they intended to show the Disney Robinson Crusoe and either ordered the wrong movie or the wrong one was delivered. Because that movie made no sense when those watching had an average age of 8 to 10. And yes, in those days parents just dropped you off and put an older sibling in charge - usually between 10 and 13.
I don't think I've ever finally watched Robinson Crusoe on Mars, but I did watch and love The Martian. I'm sure I could watch that now. But never The Birds.
Theresa wrote: "And yes, in those days parents just dropped you off and put an older sibling in charge - usually between 10 and 13."Wow that triggered some memories!
We had a local theater that showed Disney and other kid's movies on Saturday mornings. My Mom would drop my sister and I off with enough money for two tickets, two sodas and a dime to call her to pick us up after the movie. And the sodas came from one of those machines that dropped a cup, then the ice, poured the syrup and then finally the soda water. No straw, no lid - and you had to drink it fairly quickly or the paper cup got mushy.
A whole theater full of kids with very few adults - and everyone was generally well behaved.
Sue wrote: "Theresa wrote: "And yes, in those days parents just dropped you off and put an older sibling in charge - usually between 10 and 13."Wow that triggered some memories!
We had a local theater that ..."
Yup. Though our sodas were handed out at the concession stand though still in paper cups but not those machine ones, and I think they were free.
We didn't even have a dime to call mom -- she was doing the grocery shopping, banking, Agway run, etc. while we spent 2 hours in the movie theater.
In the small town where my grandparents lived, my cousins and I would walk downtown and go to the movies for a dime. We could stay all afternoon, watching the movie as often as we liked. They would even stamp our hand so we could go down the street to the hotdog stand and get "lunch" and still come back inside without paying a second time. I particularly remember watching a couple of John Wayne movies .. Hatari! and McLintock!
The author warns readers regularly through the book that bad things happen - and they do! Wow, I would have been horrified to read this as a kid and my biggest anxiety was what would happen if my parents died.
The three Baudelaire children learn they've been orphaned on the first page (so not a spoiler) and they're packed off to live with a relative they've never met. The relative turns out to be an awful, abusive person seeking to steal the children's inheritance.
While the scary parts were scarier than I expected from a middle-grade book, the writing was great. The story moved along - and the clear cut good guys/bad guys plot was a nice change from some more complex books I've read recently.