Are these books for children?

Question

I'm collecting nice editions of classic children's books and I was wondering whether the following would or could be considered children's books in their complete and unabridged forms, judging by reading level and target audience, NOT by theme please. I know a couple of them have issues of race in. I also know that there are children's versions of the stories available but I'm talking about the originals.

Robinson Cruesoe by Daniel Defoe
Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne
The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann Wyss
Ivanhoe by Sir Waltar Scott
The Uncle Remus books by Joel Chandler Harris
Tom Brown's School Days by Thomas Hughes

Answer 1

Almost none of those are meant specifically for children - in fact, there wasn't any such thing as novels specifically for children when a lot of these writers were alive, and children were mostly expected to jump straight from reading simple nursery rhymes to reading the same books that adults read. Novels especially for children were almost unheard of until the mid to late 19th century, and even then, there were very few of them published.



Uncle Remus and The Swiss Family Robinson are meant specifically for children. The others are meant for a universal audience. Gulliver's Travels is actually a largely political satire, but of course, that's completely lost on child readers (and most adult ones). There's no reason why a child couldn't read them (although most children find unabridged versions of Ivanhoe and Robinson Crusoe to be immensely dull and overly-verbose) but children weren't their target audience.



I'm not saying they'd be an easy read for a child under, say, 12, but there's no reason why they shouldn't attempt them. I'd read all but two of them by the time I started secondary school (ie by age 11). The ones I hadn't read were Swiss Family Robinson and Tom Brown's Schooldays (which I still haven't read, in fact).

Answer 2

That depends on the age. I think all of them might be a little difficult for 10 year old or younger. However, Gulliver's Travels, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer/Hucklebery Finn, and the Swiss Family Robinsons seem like good choices for a preteen. Uncle Remus are "children's stories" but they are told in a strange dialect which makes them difficult to read. Tom Brown's School Days i've never read, but based on the wikipedia article it seems like a kid's book.

Answer 3

In their complete forms, some of these are hard to follow. Like, Huckleberry Finn for instance is an eleventh-grade Honors reading requirement where I live and when I read it, there were difficult parts to follow just because of vocabulary, slang, and diction that the book was written in. I'm assuming Tom Sawyer is the same way because it is written by the same author. So, I'm not sure these would be considered "children's" classics, because most of these are read in high schools, but in my opinion, the original forms would be way too difficult a reading level for a child (because a few of these were hard for me to understand! Haha..). I hoped this helped a bit! :)

Answer 4

Ivanhoe would be too high a reading level for kids. Maybe even Robinson Crusoe (and it discusses cannibalism some).

Answer 5

All Books are very good for reading but its not only for children its depend of children age group.