The Underneath discussion
Darkness
date
newest »
newest »
I think it's absolutely fair to give folks with little kids a heads-up about the tone of the story, but at the same time I worry that there's a danger of dwelling too much on the dark side and thereby doing the book a disservice.I also firmly believe that no matter what any reviewer says, parents, teachers, and librarians reading aloud to youngsters should always read a book in its entirety before sharing it with kids. It's the only fail-safe way to avoid nasty surprises. Making read-aloud selections based on a book's appearance rather than its content is a guaranteed route to trouble.
Setting aside the issue of appearance, do you think the level of darkness in The Underneath is appropriate for its intended audience?
If there had been time I would have read it aloud to my current crop of 4th graders. If next group seems right for it, I may read it to them. Like KT, I definitely think the darkness works for the audience.
"You'd probably be surprised at the number of people who don't do this."After six years in an indie bookshop, nope, I wouldn't be surprised a bit! ;) We had teachers buy class sets of novels without ever reading them...
I'm wondering if one of the reasons the violence in this novel is so unsettling is because the victims are animals. Really -- the topics of death and abuse are not new to the world of middle grade fiction. But these dog and cat characters seem even more helpless than not because, as animals, they have zero protection -- physical, societal, or otherwise -- from their human tormentor. To me, the realization that Appelt was not holding back in her realistic depiction of animal abuse was what really touched a nerve.In other books with abused or orphaned children, there's almost always the expectation that the victimized child will be picked up by Social Services, or taken in by an estranged relative, or something. There's no such comfort for these animal characters, and that, to me, is the real darkness.
If anything, I imagine this book could lead to some great classroom discussion regarding animal rights.
I'm quite optimistic that many of my sixth graders next year will enjoy this as a choice reading book. I'm already trying to figure out a budget that lets me buy a six book set for a book club group.I'm a tad concerned that they'll get a little lost in some of the swampy poetic language, but they'll work through it and hopefully just revel in it.
Per Sarah's question in her first comment, I'm not sure labeling this book "dark" is a fair reputation. There are dark characters, to be sure, one of the darkest I've read in a children's book, and bad things happen, but they appear alongside some incredibly noble, trustworthy, strong-hearted characters. In my elemetary library, I wouldn't label it dark, but I would alert young readers that there are some scary, sad moments.
[Aside: Once a lady came into the bookstore with her child and said she didn't want any "s-a-d" books. She couldn't even say the word "sad" in front of the kid. I find that more damaging and disturbing than reading a tear-jerker now and then.]
So when a book like The Underneath comes along, it shakes us up, even as we marvel at its depth and heart. Seems to me The Underneath is already acquiring quite a reputation for its darkness -- is that reputation fair?
I'd argue that kids actually need and crave a certain amount of darkness in their stories -- that it amounts to honesty about the world. Kate DiCamillo talks about that here in relation to The Tale of Despereaux, and Chris Crutcher had this to say in King of the Mild Frontier:
If I have any complaints about my youth, and if you’ve read this far you know I have many, one is that so many well-meanng adults lied to me. Not spiteful lies with malicious intent but lies designed to prevent emotional and psychological pain, lies told by the people who cared about me most: my parents, teachers, relatives. They were lies designed to prevent disappointment, lies about the virtues of love, hard work, any any number of terms around which cliches blossom like desert flowers after a flash flood. […] And I believed them, and became disillusioned when life turned out to operate by a different set of rules. Love brought as many problems as it solved. It didn’t “conquer all”; it challenged, it tested. Honesty was the best policy, unless you didn’t want someone to know the truth.
What say you?