Monday July 09, 2007
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Monday July 09, 2007 | Watership Down? More Like Black Hawk Down! | Kids |
I read Watership Down as a child and have fond memories of it. My four year old daughter is always asking me to "make up" stories for her so I usually just tell her modified versions of books that I've read or movies that I've seen (She really liked the adventures of the "robots" R2-D2" and "C-3PO"
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Recently she wanted a story about bunnies, so I tried to remember Watership Down. I remembered a few character names, but couldn't recall enough of the plot to tell her a good story. So, off to the library we went to get the book and DVD. The book is to wordy for a four year old to sit through, and there is a whole mythology and language to learn. As a result, I've taken to reading chapters on my own and then summarizing for her.
*** Spoiler Warnings for Watership Down. ***
My recollection of Watership Down, filtered over these many years, was a story about "bunnies on an adventure." I had forgotten how violent parts of the story are. It's hard enough explaining a military command structure to a child, but there are quite a few dead bunnies to contend with as well. I knew I was in trouble when my daughter was upset that the OWSLA didn't let Fiver eat a cowslip. And that's just in the first chapter.
Suffice it to say that General Woundwort and Captain Campion are making few appearances in my abridged version of the story.
The DVD isn't much better. The "next chapter" button will be my friend if I ever let her watch it. I previewed it and it's quite gory. It also suffers from something I call "not enough closure" syndrome. My daughter can handle stories with the characters in some peril, as long as she sees that they are okay at the end. The problem with lots of "kids" movies is that after showing the characters in lost, hunted, or otherwise unhappy for over an hour, she needs to see them found, safe and happy again for more than just a few minutes. Just saying "happily ever after" doesn't always cut it. She wants to see it.
In the case of Watership Down, after the big (and bloody) fight with the General, they fast forward over all of that "safe" time and show Hazel and friends safe for about a minute. Then the Black Rabbit of Death comes to take Hazel away.
Good night, sweetie! Sleep tight!
I can't protect her forever, but I'm going to try for as long as I can. Long live Hazel-rah.
Tags: books kids watership+down
July 09, 2007 12:13 PM PDT Permalink | |
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Kevin Chu, Some Rights Reserved.
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