Books and Children

[Islamic Revival]

As-salam alaikum,

Here's an issue I'm having some difficulty with these days.

I have always loved books, and as a child I read hundreds of books, all by Western authors. With my children, I couldn't wait to introduce them to all the stories I had read and loved as a child.

However, now, when I read a lot of these books, I notice that they are not promoting Islamic values, although I do read Islamic books to them as well.

There are ladybird books, which talk about kings and queens and 'ugly step-sisters', etc. Then there are Roald Dahl books with fantastic stories, but a general anti-authority tendency. Then there are CS Lewis books , which on the face of them seem harmless, even spiritual, but when I started to research them, some people think that they are anti-Muslim.

Should children be kept away from all of these books? Or should they be read the books, but also encouraged to think about the values that the books promote, and to let them enjoy the story for itself?

[maruf]

Islamic revival wrote:

"Should children be kept away from all of these books? Or should they be read the books, but also encouraged to think about the values that the books promote, and to let them enjoy the story for itself?"




As I am sure you know, children learn amazingly early and fast. We are amazed at the words our son, who is 2 mentions from time to time. Just today he said.."The juice is good." and "Thank you," when I gave him the juice. I had never heard him say this before. It was his first sentence I think.

Socialization, which I know some have heard me mention quite a bit involves all ways in which we know what we know or learn would we know.

I can perhaps speak with a little more certainty about socialization for this is part of by academic focus.

Essentially when our environment interacts with us to form who we are.

The environment is all that which is around us, books, family, peers, TV, schools, govs. music, etc.

Because we do not live in an Islaamic environment, our influences might come from other than islaam.

As parents we try our best to minimize the effects realizing that we as parents are affected as well.

Of course there are subtle messages within culture and books that we need to critique based on the correct understanding Islaam gives us. The ability to critique is dependent on how aware and critical we are as parents.

Ideally of course it would be nice to feed our children nothing but Islaamic concepts, but if we are going to read them books (both Muslim and non-Muslim) of course we need to be critical of what is inside them.

This is dynamic and at times difficult to do given the restraints of time and energy to fully do the job. Or at least as well as we would like to.