At Adina's request.

Chatterbox: Blab About Books

GIC...
At Adina's request....

At Adina's request. I'd been meaning to do this anyhow, summer gives me way too much time.

GIC, for those blissfully unaware, stands for Great Illustrated Classics. Although Grimly Ill-Conceived Concept might be more accurate. GIC is written by a bunch of adults who've got little better to do than write "books" that clearly criticize the intellect of children everywhere. They... "simplify"... things like EAP, Dickens, Hugo, Leoux, etc. This is meant to "introduce" children to literature and "encourage reading." (Like the graphic novel of Fahrenheit 451 that's coming out. So annoyed about that...) They do not encourage me at all. Actually they rather frighten me. A lot.

The editing, by the way, is quite poor. And the illustrations... "overabundant" would be a courteous word to describe them. Garish, incessant, and creepy would also work too.

Getting back to my point, Adina suggested a thread where we can direct any GIC ranting and ranting about belittling children in general. Here it is. Now someone tell me to get a life, please, or find some *constructive* use of my time. ;)

submitted by Mary W., age 11.63, NJ
(August 9, 2009 - 1:12 pm)

back to the Blab about Books

I agree. GIC is horrible. I've read their versions of Little Women and White Fang, and...

YellWHY MUST THEY TORMENT CHILDREN SO? YellDO THEY THINK WE'RE IDIOTS? YellWE'RE PERFECTLY CAPABLE OF READING SOME ADULT BOOKS, AND WE CAN WAIT A FEW YEARS FOR THE ONES WE CAN'T COMPREHEND! YellWE DON'T NEED PEOPLE REPLACING TERMS LIKE 'MAGNIFICANT' WITH ONES LIKE 'PRETTY!' YellAND THOSE ILLUSTRATIONS ARE UGLY, AND OFTEN DON'T FIT THE DESCRIPTIONS IN THE BOOKS!  Yell*headsharpdiamond*Yell

Sorry Admin Embarassed. If you want, you can change my message a bit. However, I fully meant every word i said, every face I made, and all the caps/bold/italics.

 

I don't have time to retype in lowecase. There are lots of comments waiting to be posted. So I just took off the bold and italics. I'll let you get away with all the caps this time.

Admin

submitted by Ima
(August 9, 2009 - 5:07 pm)

Yes.

submitted by Brynne, age 14, Flying away on
(August 10, 2009 - 9:34 am)

GIC takes Disneyfication to a whole new level... *cringe*

Me, for example! I first read Dracula (unabridged, unedited, the original Stoker version...) in the sixth grade. Sure, I didn't get all the, um, allusions and whatnot, but I still enjoyed it and it's really the novel that got me into the literature of that era (Dickens, h'm...)

GIC, on the other hand... *shudders* It's... it's... Disneyfication, in a word. Hugely insulting, patronizing, condescending, irritating, disturbing, and wrong on all levels in several words.

submitted by TNÖ, age 16, Deep Space
(August 10, 2009 - 12:03 pm)

thanks Mary W.! I was going to do this but I thought the Admins would zap it. So now for my input I shall tell a story about belittling children in general.

Once upon a time in a land far far away lived a litttle girl named Adina and her even littler brother Eugene. One day they went to the pool and went to the lap lane to swim laps. They tried really hard to avoid the old lady swimming there also. They swum laps until the old ady started yelling at us to get out since we were disturbing her and said she was going to complain to the dude who runs the place. We were swimming laps just like her. OUr dad told her that and she said "Get those CHILDREN out of here. It is not the place for them" WE were doing what she was doing but we were children so the odds were against us. It's people like her who write GIC as well as those stupid educational shows that "make learning fun" or "math fun" or "reading fun" because it is "for kids". Who says kids don't like veggies. I REFUSE TO BE TALKED DOWN TO!!! I also refused to be put at the childrens table since I was 7 but that did not stop anybody...

submitted by Adina , age 12, Mostly in fanta
(August 10, 2009 - 12:28 pm)

I know! Who says kids can't enjoy reading, math, learning, etc? And it's true that we can't understand some of the regular versions of the books they portray, but why can't we can't read those particular books when we're older? There's plenty of others to read!

Children of the world, unite! Make this pledge: I solemnly promise that I when I am an adult, I will never treat children as if they lack minds, and I will never let my children read Great Illustrated Classics!

I have a problem. I need to get rid of a GIC book, but I don't want to sell it to anyone else to torment their children with, or children to btormented with. I want to make sure no one ever reads it, without destroying it, since I could never bring myself to destroy a book. I'd just throw it out, but my mom would never let me.

submitted by Ima
(August 10, 2009 - 1:04 pm)

I read Dracula in fifth grade. It's really not as horrific as he GICers make it out to be.

@ Ima: Same problem here. Except we have... an entire *shelf* of GIC books. I basically just try my best to keep the younger siblings away from them until they're old enough to understand the danger ands stupidity of such things. *thinks* You could hide it, I guess.

Note on GIC books: Practically every other sentence contains an exclamation point.

submitted by Mary W., age 11.63, NJ
(August 10, 2009 - 2:00 pm)

You should BURN them! *evil laff*

submitted by Adina , age 12, Mostly in fanta
(August 10, 2009 - 8:52 pm)

@ Ima: Sell it. Sell it. Sell it. Yes that is evil but hey, if there is money invovled...

Yeah I'm kidding. That is a delimma

submitted by Adina, age 12, Mostly in fanta
(August 10, 2009 - 2:05 pm)

Last night, after I posted (well it was really more ranting about "abridged versions by using culinary descriptions , but lets not get into that....) on the "books i did not like" thread, I remembered this set of books my Nana bought me when I was 8 or nine. THE TORTURE! It was like a GIC/Abridged version!!!!!!! It came in a pack that had "Little Women, Pride and Prejudice, Oliver Twist, and something about an invisible head that I was to scared to read and threw it behind my bed. I struggled through the burning torture for my Nana. After they were read and safely tucked away in the back of my bookcase, she got me more! I just told my mom they were books that were ready to be taken to a second-hand store. The kind, non-torture-inducing (usually) lady that she is, she took them away. *shudder* Ima, I suggest throwing it under your bed (if possible) and trying to forget it was there or that you ever read it. That"s what I did when I read Where the Red Fern Grows. It upset my so much, I threw it behind my bed and it wasn't seen for nearly 2 years (I took it out for cleaning, but then afterwords, it went right back under!) until I got my own room. The end. That my suggestion.

submitted by Emma O., age 12
(August 18, 2009 - 11:40 am)