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Stories and Poems for Extremely Intelligent Children of All Ages
Binding: Paperback
Author: Harold Bloom
Release Date: 2002-09-24
Manufacturer: Scribner
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Features:
Average Rating: 4.0
Total Customer Reviews: 18
List Price: $18.00
Our Price: $14.04
Sales Rank: 194167
Product Description
"If readers are to come to Shakespeare and to Chekhov, to Henry James and to Jane Austen, then they are best prepared if they have read Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear, Robert Louis Stevenson and Rudyard Kipling," writes Harold Bloom in his introduction to this enchanting and much-needed anthology of exceptional stories and poems selected to inspire a lifelong love of reading. As television, video games, and the Internet threaten to distract young people from the solitary pleasures of reading, Bloom presents a volume that will amuse, challenge, and beguile readers with its myriad voices and subjects. Here are old favorites by beloved writers of children's literature, as well as exciting rediscoveries and wonderful works penned by writers better known for their adult classics, such as Herman Melville, Leo Tolstoy, Edith Wharton, and Walt Whitman. Encompassing the natural world and the supernatural; childhood, romance, and death; pets, wild animals, and goblins; mystery, adventure, and humor; the selections reflect the passion and erudition of our most revered literary critic. Arranged by season, Stories and Poems for Extremely Intelligent Children of All Ages is a must-have anthology, sure to delight readers young and old for years to come.
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Users Product Reviews: |
Product Review Summary: The BEST short story and poetry compilation I never fully enjoyed poetry until I started reading this book to my kids. Now we are all hooked and our lives are the better for it. Blooms choices are all great. The short stories are great too.
Product Review Summary: pompous title, pretentious literature I have no doubts about Harold Bloom's talents as a professor of literature, but I suspect he doesn't know much about children under college age. There is little here to engage children, even "extremely intelligent" ones who recognize the high quality of writing. Could any child find interest in Nathaniel Hawthorne's musings about the motives of a man who left his wife for 20 years, only to return again after she presumed him dead? How about Oscar Wilde's dreary fairy tale told from the perspective of a firecracker? (It ends predictably with a fizzle.) Any interest in Tolstoy's discussion about how much land a man needs? A few stories are simply too scary or ethically dubious to offer to children. Zoa's story about the difficulties in starting an agency in Paris that rents out ugly girls to go walking in town with pretty girls, (in order to make the pretty girl get more attention by the contrast), seems to endorse callousness and exploitation. Many hours of discussion MIGHT make it a worthwhile story. To be sure, there are Rudyard Kipling tales, Aesop stories, Lewis Carroll poems, and an offering of writers from many cultures. My children find this book tiresome.
Product Review Summary: A "definite" for your home library. Every story in this book is worth reading. Age doesn't matter- if you really love books, you'll really love this collection. The core of wonder, imagination, adventure, romance, it's all here in this collection.
Product Review Summary: The Phantom-Wooer So dark! So dark! So dark!
I spent either too much or not enough time thinking about the anthology's four seasons schema, which I saw-rather obviously-as corresponding to the life cycle, with at each step (hopefully) an expansion of consciousness unto death (and pure light, to my way of thinking). Winter is four times as long as spring. If I am correct, then I passionately argue against the content of the fourth chapter, which is more a contraction than an expansion of consciousness. Murder, madness, self-immolation, suicide, haunting, witchcraft, sorcery, possession-not one ray of light penetrates the density, and the fourth section hung heavily on me awhile. (Is there a more freaking terrifying story in existence than "The Horla"? If I wasn't a sleep-deprived mommy, I'd probably be up nights thinking about it, and it doesn't bear thinking.) Unless-and this could be the point-the fourth cycle of life is all about apprehending and absorbing one's shadow side-thus all the imagery of mirrors, faces, absorption. Oh, but wait, I'm forgetting: Bloom is a kind of Gnostic-the demiurge, Sophia, aborted world-so his vision would be unrelentingly dark.
Or maybe the book is just a response to Harry Potter, a conversation about the merits of pre-20th century fantastic literature.
On a different note: What does one give the gifted kid to read? I don't see anyone else attempting to answer that one. I remember reading Little House, Roald Dahl, finding my dad's unabridged Sherlock Holmes and reading that obsessively; a kindly teacher gave me "Jane Eyre," which I devoured-and loved-but at night the mad Mrs. Rochester was too much for the over-active imagination of a sensitive pre-teen; I'd lie in bed awhile shaking with dread, then get in bed with a younger sibling just for human warmth. Well, this anthology would have terrified more than nurtured me, or terrified and nurtured. At any rate, I'd have lost sleep.
I'd quibble with Bloom about excluding modernists; they have their numinous moments (Steinbeck's snake lady), and I also missed Chekhov and Dickinson, though I see his point. There are mildly patronizing bits in his introductory essay, but this means a great deal to me: "...there are so many shadows, so many difficulties, in all human love that something deep within us may go on feeling lonely. As intelligence and awareness increase in us, we can believe that what is best and oldest in us cannot be known by others."
How do you rate a book when you greatly admire the intellect but reject the vision strongly? 4 stars. A Halloween anthology.
Product Review Summary: gram and gramps at it again just a wonderful book to supplement the curious child's education.
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