The Imagination of the Child – The Acorn School

I want children to read literature that is conducive to their age and leave those mystical and frightening texts for when they can discern reality, and when they have first learned to love beauty. Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, The Hunger Games, and Terry Pratchett, to mention only a few of the modern world’s ‘must-haves’, contain deeply insensitive and addictive material which I am certain encourages difficult behaviour in children; yet they can be bought without a special licence, and can damage the sensitive subconscious brains of young children, many of whom may be added to the current statistics of mentally ill young children. For young adults, this literature, when it can be understood for what it is, is the choice of many!

Buying sensational books is like feeding your child with spoons of added sugar, heaps of it, and when the child becomes addicted it will seek more and more, which if related to books, fills the bank vaults of those who write un-sensitive books for young children!

Source: The Imagination of the Child – The Acorn School

When I first read this, I thought it was a brilliant piece of satire. And then the author responded with a statement, after which I realized he was serious.

His arguments are valid, reading material should be age appropriate. Is Harry Potter appropriate for a 10 year old? I would have to know the student to be able to accurately assess the appropriateness. Therein lies the problem when using something such as reading level or lexiles as the only measurement on whether a book is appropriate. Without teachers who know their students, this question will not be answered. And everytime a librarian position is cut, one less resource is available for the students and the teachers to be able to select appropriate texts that a student can be passionate about.