A Landscape with Dragons: The Battle for Your Child's Mind - Fantasy Book for Kids & Parents | Perfect for Bedtime Reading & Family Bonding

I am thoroughly impressed with O'Brien's thoughtful dissection of children's literature. The status quo mentality for most children's books is currently along the lines of "This is great! Children will love this! It's getting them to read!" As an elementary teacher, it is tempting to buy into that enthusiasm for any book series that children are eating up. But the author shows tremendous insight by pulling back the curtain and asking, "At what price?"It is a fascinating premise for a book. When you look at how radically literature (and films as well) have been altered over the last 50 years, it is certainly time we start questioning where we are headed. In the forward, David Sloan states, "In this collection of essays, we are not told where that line is; we are told how to recognize it."The book's thesis is excellent, and he works hard to persuade us without coming across as damning or alarmist. There are some places where I felt maybe he was being too sensitive, but then I just had to ask myself if being too sensitive to sin was a bad thing. The cohesiveness of the essays is somewhat disjointed; there is not much connectivity between the different chapters, which can be a little jarring. A brief summary of some of his key points, paraphrased in my own words.-The dragon, a centuries-old Western symbol of evil is being made into a friendly, misunderstood creature.-Children's moral compasses are still developing and need literary characters that exhibit heroic virtue. Their young minds do not understand flawed heroes.-That being said, they are very drawn to rebellion and dangerous things because they see them as cool, often wanting to emulate behavior of their favorite characters.-He discusses Disney movies for quite a while, concerning how the movie counterparts of classic literature have been changed to reflect less virtue.-He examines several popular science-fiction authors (including Madeline L'Engle-who I loved as a kid) and the subtle New Age influences they slip into their writing.-In his conclusion, Are Christians Intolerant? (great title) he reasons that yes, we are, and that it is good to be prejudiced against harmful things the same way it is right for a mother to be biased against snakes, wolves and other predators.-An outstanding reading list is provided at the end. What an enriching resource! Almost 100 pages of reccommended lit for children, teens and adults. This tremendous list made my wife decide we needed our own copy of this book.It is interesting to note that some of the most convincing examples of twisted children's literature and film are not even mentioned in this book, because they hadn't yet come to the author's attention. Published in 1998, Harry Potter was just starting to take off, and the phenomenally successful Shrek movies were yet to be released. When you think about how these two characters appeal to children, I became pretty convinced that O'Brien was certainly on to something. In that sense, I believe his book will continue to be prophetic of what we are to see unless we start making more conscientious decisions as consumers.And that's what I enjoyed the most about "Landscape with Dragons" -that it empowered me to make my own decisions awarely; I didn't feel the author was trying to convince me to read the same books as he did, watch the same movies, and banish anything heathen from the home. Instead, he encouraged to look deeper. Look beyond the surface. I don't think I will read books or watch movies the same way. This book has given me another lens to look at literature and film through, another tool to appreciate their worth (or lack thereof). I would definitely reccommend this for any parents and teachers who have ever read a book and felt "Something is not quite right with this." This book just might open your eyes to what that something lying under the surface is.