Quote:
Originally Posted by Sauron the White
Most of these kids have difficulty going through simple daily tasks let alone saving the world.
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That's what makes them good books for me and probably for them. You can't aspire to something you can do perfectly well on daily basis yourself. I can't model my behavior and be thrilled by a story of a man who ate his eggs and bacon, went to the office, sat out boring morning there doing his duty reasonably well, than dined, slacked a little as you can't work well on full stomach, did the rest of his duty half-as-well as in the morning and than went home to do homely chores. I'm that man, I don't need a guide there. His story doesn't give me 'trembling inside'
The very impossibility (or is it? why? have we been there and tried? what if we did if we did if you follow my meaning, merciful sir?) is what attracts in the books of the kind.
Bilbo (and Frodo for the matter) was as unlikely 'to do a hero' as any kid would be to save the world (see above about what ifs, though), but the very fact they actually
did is what makes it
most astonishing wonderful
I suppose that you (with full respect to your experience as a teacher yet still) underastimate what children are capable of perceiving. As far as I remember (and been reading since age of six, starting with Three Musketeers I believe), I always was able to detect things that were 'conditional', but as soon as they were part of the 'rules' which worked within given book, they were ok. Willing suspension of disbelief I believe (pun intended
) the process have been called by Tolkien
If I wanted a book about myself as I am in
this time and place, I'd read something along realism lines. But I know the parts of myself revealed by my daily life well enough. I need different mirror.