I did a post a few days ago about some of the books I had picked up recently. One book in particular, I had seen before.... but something told me that it wasn't a GOOD book.... I just didn't know what it was, but I didn't buy it. Well, it was shown to me again at the school store, so I bought it .... thinking... "Hilda, your just being silly... it's a Newberry book... it won a medal... it can't be THAT bad... so just get it and let Amelia read it just because it has her name on it... for fun..." Well, Amelia started reading the book and was first of all very aggravated that there were no.... absolutely not one single... quotation mark in the whole book! I just don't even know what to say about a children's book not putting quotation marks around the words the characters are speaking. She said, "sometimes I don't know if they are speaking or thinking!" Yesterday she came to the middle of the book and turned a page and read... then very calmly said, "Mamma, there is an UGLY word in this book." I was only a little concerned because I knew that it is a secular book and some 'slang cursing' is possible. (When we listened to Bridge to Taribithia the children and I cringed every time the boy said... 'good lord'...to the boy it was just an expression... to us it was '....if you only new how good!') But Amelia assured me that it was a VERY UGLY word. And it was. Not the 'h' word... not the 's' word... not the 'd' word, by itself anyway... You just don't attach my God to ugly words and expect my child to read it!!!! So be warned... trust your instinct, not a secular award for good literature!
I guess this has been the ugly word week for us around here. I have decided that it is a good idea to buy the old Webster's Dictionary. Daniel was looking up the word 'assiduous' for his diligence study and saw many inappropriate words... he exclaimed 'Mamma! I saw an UGLY word!" I just don't want my children to be looking up word for a Biblical character study and see words that are frequently used on bathroom walls! Anybody out there hear me???? Lynn did tell me about dictionary.com I guess you can pay $20 a year and have no advertisements and have the benefit of a auditory pronunciation... something that we could really use! It would be nice for each child to have their own dictionary... does anyone know of a cheaper, maybe paperback version of Webster's original?????
*looking at this post from far in the future.. now Dictionary.com is free on my new iPhone!
3 comments:
I think it's completely precious how your children reacted in that way. so very sweet.
I want to get the vision forum one just for the sake of having it, but there are days that my laptop screen never changes from dictionary.com! We LOVE having the words pronounced for us!! :)
I think that Momma Intuition is a big deal and something we need to tap into as much as possible. God knows what our families need.
I'm glad she knew to let you know.
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