How do you read Huckleberry Finn to children? Or do you?

The recent news about an upcoming edition of Huckleberry Finn scrubbed of the word "nigger" sparked discussions all over.  I participated in the discussion at Ta-nehisi Coates's blog, (read the comments here -- they are much better than the original post).

At first I was tentatively in favor of the existence of such a thing, on the theory that so many students are deprived of the novel because the schools won't use it, maybe it would be better for them to get an abridged choice than none at all; and also because maybe it would be a more appropriate choice for very young kids, and parents might prefer that..   I retreated from that position some as the discussion went on, though.  If it is necessary, I guess it's of the necessary-evil sort.  

Either way, I disagree that the idea is stupid or evil or even "a ridiculous bit of political correctness."   I think we can assume good intentions on the part of the redactors.  Look:  It's a problem when possibly the single most important American novel can't be used in many schools because of policies governing its vocabulary.  I also think it's fair to take people at their word who are made uncomfortable by the word "nigger" in Huck Finn -- people of all colors.    Publishing a redacted version probably will get a form of the book into more classrooms, and may help some students read it who might reject it otherwise.  

Is that better than fewer classrooms reading the real book?  I am not at all sure.  I'm a homeschooler who loves old books, and consequently I redact all the  time while reading aloud.  Most of the words I have to remove, however, are there because of the author's blind spots.  In HF, "nigger" is there because of the author's clear sight.  It's an artifact of its time and it is absolutely central to a complete understanding of the book.  We are still grappling with it BECAUSE of what it means in HF.  It's not incidental to its position in the canon of American literature.

Some people wrote that if a child is too young to be exposed to the "offensive language" in HF, then they are too young for HF.  I am sympathetic to this argument to a point.  Obviously the entire power of the book is not going to be absorbed by young children, but that's not an argument against using it early.  I think the book might best be encountered twice:  once for the adventure story, later for the social criticism (strengthened by a love for the adventure story).   But if you're going to do it that way, I think it'sreasonable for the teaching parent to introduce the book in redacted and possibly abridged form.  We know our own kids.  

I told a story in the discussion at TNC's blog:

I am a homeschooling parent. My oldest is ten. We are white (which is relevant).

Last year, I covered 19th-century U.S. History, with lots of focus on the Civil War, mostly using literature. One thing we did was study the writings of W.E.B. du Bois and Booker T. Washington in order to see the differences between their philosophies. I let the kids (my son and a friend his age) discover the similarities and differences themselves, though I had to select the text excerpts of course. 

Anyway, I was pleased with what they learned, except for one thing. Afterward I had to aggressively train my son, who kept forgetting, in the fact that he can't walk around referring to people as "Negroes" or "colored." (as in: "Mom, I met a new friend at the Y today. Did you see him? It was that Negro boy with the blue shirt.") He just hadn't had any occasion to hear the words yet.

SO. Coming around to Huck Finn. It's a great, great book, and it's a travesty that, if you are committed to using it exactly as it was written, you have to be EXTREMELY careful if you use it with children or else delay using it till high school. I was worried enough about my son innocently referring to another child as "Negro" because I didn't foresee him taking it in as ordinary vocabulary. I'm not about to expose him to "nigger" unless he's reached an age where I can be confident he can understand that it is not ordinary vocabulary.

My friends who have read Huck Finn aloud to their elementary-school children have *all* bowdlerized it in the reading aloud, usually replacing "nigger" with "slave." It is a wonderful adventure story with much to teach middle-school kids, but I think it's reasonable for parents to choose not to burden YOUNGER children with the vocabulary of ethnic slurs. 

Some people are framing this as a matter of delicate sensibilities; me, I don't want MY kid to accidentally hurt someone ELSE's feelings. I'd rather he not hear and possibly become desensitized to "nigger" until he's old enough to have a frank discussion about it.

Discussion (and it's really great discussion, thought provoking) continued in the comments thread at this post here.  I came away from it feeling a little bit more confident about being able to overcome the language problem I described above.

But I felt that it really culminated today:  This writer tells how he shared the book with his own children.    I think he's answered my question for how to deal with it.  What do you think about his approach?

Comments

[Robin]

Great discussion. For what it's worth, as a homeschooling family, we've listened to Huck Finn, as an audiobook, twice so far. Our summers are such that we end up driving long distances, so I decided to have my (then) 13 and 12 yo listen to it with me. I knew about the n-word (which is how we refer to it) and had the "frank discussion". I think what is lost in this analysis of whether this novel should be abridged is that as families, we really forget that we can rely on our family vernacular.

I had a friend once, who sat her children down and told them exactly the words that they weren't allowed to say. It was funny, because here is their mother, saying the words that they weren't allowed to say. But I worried that it could be counterproductive.

Now I look at my own children, who speak as we do, simply because that's how we speak. Family vernacular.

As far as the novel goes, the narrator in the audiobook really nailed MT's dry humor, voice and wit so much so that at one point, I almost drove off the road I was laughing so hard (particularly the part where snakes kept dropping out of the ceiling at the aunt's house). If I had them listen to this at a younger age, I think most of the humor would have gone over their heads. As it was, they "got" the humor, the smarminess of "The Frauds", and the warmth and love. We've listened to it twice now because they've asked that it be our summer tradition.

Sorry for all of the words. Maybe it's the coffee talking.

[Angela C.]

I think his approach was a good solution; however, swapping "Negro" for "nigger" would seem to heighten awareness of what he didn't want to have to say. For example, I find it ridiculous whenever I see someone use "Vajayjay" in place of vagina. It trivializes whatever the person was trying to say just because he or she was seemingly uncomfortable with using vagina. If you're going to be crass enough to mention the unmentionable in public, you might as well go whole hog. Now, I'm not equating a medical term with a racial slur, I'm just using this to illustrate my point. I wasn't exposed to Huck Finn until I was in my sophomore year in high school, and I don't remember much about the experience. What I do remember was the very end of The Grapes of Wrath with Roseasharn breastfeeding the dying man, which I found profoundly shocking.

So, if I were to expose Mark Twain's literature to younger children, I'd have a discussion about it first, and also talk about heightening awareness of the forbidden by using a substitution.

[Christy Porucznik]

There was a nice piece about this on The Daily Show the other night in which Larry Wilmore, senior black correspondent, argued for not changing the words because it changed the point. Summary of his take: Jim was not a slave, he ran away from that, but he couldn't run away from being a n**.