Kevin's Watch

I baby sit a group of kids now and again and usually read while they're hogging the TV or computers for gaming or whatever.
One of them is 10 yrs old and saw me reading TIW (a while back) and asked if it was a good book. I said it's excellent then he asked if he could read it... bing red flag!
IMO he was too young so I promised that when he was older he could... now the question is just how old do you all think is the "youngest" a reader could take on the series. We're talking in the realm of appropriateness.

I honestly think that would depend upon the child in question. And upon that child's parents.

Well, I read them for the first time when I was 16. My oldest daughter is now 13 and a book worm...very much into Harry Potter. She picked up LFB and started reading it. She found it very hard to understand and depressing. So she decided not too keep going with it. I think 13 is okay.

It's hard...because each child is different and what they are capable of comprehending and dealing with is different. My daughter is very well read and I would have absolutely no problem letting her read the books. She just chose not too at this time. She's all wrapped up in that boy wizard

My standard answer to this question is somewhere around 32.

I think 13's an acceptable age, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone younger than 18, taking into account emotional maturity and all.

My honest opinion is that these books are meaningless until you have the life experience, mostly painful, to identify with Covenant.

I agree Syl. I first read them at 16...but i sure didn't fully understand it all until many re-reads later.

In fact, I still gain new insights into them as I re-read....

So, I read TWL when I was 10, never messed me up. Did it?

I dunno, not everyone is the same, so it's really difficult to decide. Ah well, you might try asking him if he knows what some of the words mean. Then you'd know if he's ready or not. If he backs away all round-eyed, then he ain't ready.

So, Johnny, you ever been in a Turkish prison?

Sylvanus:

So, Johnny, you ever been in a Turkish prison?

Nah.

It should be, "So, Johnny, ever been imprisoned in a
brathairrealm dungeon?"

And I was about 14 years old when I got the _The Illearth
War_.

Starting there did kind of color my perception of Covenant,
perhaps. Like Hile Troy, I was looking at this self-involved
rapist jerk wondernig why the heck I was supposed to care
about him.

KaosArcana wrote:Starting there did kind of color my perception of Covenant,
perhaps. Like Hile Troy, I was looking at this self-involved
rapist jerk wondernig why the heck I was supposed to care
about him.

Yup, that's how I felt when I read TIW.

Sylvanus wrote:My standard answer to this question is somewhere around 32.

LOL .. you could be me!! my thoughts exactly!! haha lol

syl wrote:I think 13's an acceptable age, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone younger than 18, taking into account emotional maturity and all.

My honest opinion is that these books are meaningless until you have the life experience, mostly painful, to identify with Covenant.

on a more serious note I tend to agree, umm .. even moreso

I would never recommend the books to anyone under 18 either .. recently a friend asked me about TCTC .. <she's nearly 18> and expressed great interest so I have leant her mine .. her brother read them some years ago and he is 16 now .. and wanted to read them again .. so he has looked at TPTP. I felt uncomfortable with giving her the books .. but she has enjoyed them .. and I did give her the standard warning and prep-talk about LFB ..

I dont feel comfortable with my kids reading them .. ever LOL nah .. if they do want to read them .. and have reached the age of maturity i deem requisite ..... LOL .... 32!

haha .. i dont know .. when it comes to my own its so hard for me to see straight .. but should that day come .. I hope to do right by them

mine are still into Harry Potter and Narnia .. and they seem sooo young to me still .. Alex is 12 and has just finished LotR's ..

TCTC .. seems worlds away yet .. but we'll see i guess

Fifteen, sixteen something. You need a fairly developed understanding of adult motivations.

I see that several people here have read it earlier and can only assume that they had developed this earlier or that they did not quite understand it at the time. (Happened to me frequently.)

I do not think age actually matters, as long as the reader is mature enough to cope with it (and doesn't mind the big words ).

Sylvanus wrote:My honest opinion is that these books are meaningless until you have the life experience, mostly painful, to identify with Covenant.

Too true. I first read Lord Foul's Bane when I was 11. My childhood helped me to catch the general idea of what was going on, but I didn't really understand much at all. I recently finished re-reading all six books and I believe that I am now, at the age of 21, old enough to really grasp the emotional and mental struggles going on behind it all.

I have a lot of friends who seem kinda interested in reading TCTC. All are between the ages of 20 and 25, and I don't think any of them could actually handle it. Sounds harsh, but as Blue_Spawn is discovering (see the 'I don't want to read any more thread'), reading the story of Thomas Covenant is NOT a walk in the park.

Sum sui generis
Vs

variol son wrote: Sounds harsh, but as Blue_Spawn is discovering (see the 'I don't want to read any more thread'), reading the story of Thomas Covenant is NOT a walk in the park.

Sum sui generis
Vs

On that I think everyone can agree upon...

It's an interesting question. This winter I worked for a few month at a school library and spent a lot of time recommending books to kids aged (mostly) 10-15. Of course, some of them were into fantasy and I tried to get them to read the good stuff and not the crud. However, I was wary about recommending Donaldson to young readers. Mainly because a) they're hard going, and LFB is unfortunately IMO by far the slowest and least exciting one; and b) I think if someone started reading them before being "ready" they'd, more or less sensibly, come to hate them. At least one guy I know did this; he read the first Chronicles at age 13-14, expecting another Lord of the Rings, was unsurprisingly highly disappointed and loathed the books for years. I got him to reread them after I first read them myself (this was some ten years later), and then he dug them.

I once read a theory that there are two kinds of TCTC readers. The first found the books by themselves, got into them and loved them. The second got the books enthusiastically recommended by someone from the first category, read for a bit and hated them. I was verging on this second group for a while, but the books grew on me.

Theo

I had the books recommended to me by my father (he bought the first chronicles in one edition for my 11th birthday), but I loved them straight away. I am slightly strange however, and definately not your average reader.

Sum sui generis
Vs

Slightly?!

Sylvanus wrote:Slightly?!

OK, I'm freaking insane! And why not? Insanity is so much more fun. I tried to be normal for a very long time, but I eventually had to face the fact that I was a christian half-cast gay male feminist radical who liked coffee so strong that it needed to be classified as a class A illegal substance.

Go figure.

Sum sui generis
Vs

14ish I reckon.

These days, the stuff in TCTC is pretty passe for today's youth. Shame, that says a little too much of the wrong thing for the way they grow up nowadays

The age is quite irrelevant. It really depends upon how you handle things. I'm 17 and even at this age I still had problems with parts like Chapter 7...while others much younger than me could probably handle it without even a notice.