What’s in your liberal arts starter pack for preteens?

November 8, 2024 2:08 PM

Think back to when you were 10-13. Was there anything - a book, a song, a painting, a film - that made you realize these things are more than just entertainment? Playing fast and loose with the definitions but I’m talking about literature versus books, cinema versus film, etc. Was there anything that just kind of opened your eyes and made you appreciate things in a more “grown up” way? What were those gateway pieces of media? (Please don’t quibble with the premise as it’s been a long week… thank you!)
posted by malhouse to Media & Arts (28 answers total)

The Golden Compass trilogy did that for me. They had such big ideas and were really critical of religion and government intermingling but still had space for magic and faith and love. I read these more on the 10 end of of the 10-13 spectrum.
posted by Sweetchrysanthemum at 2:27 PM on November 8, 2024 [9 favorites]

Not for me, but I observed with my kid: When we were visiting a foreign country and went to a famous museum, but paid for a private guided tour. We did opt for a family tour, so the guide was prepared to speak at a level at ten-year-old would be able to follow, and I just watched the way my kid's curiosity was hugely engaged. He's now 21 and does go to museums on his own. I think this is part of the reason why.
posted by BlahLaLa at 2:28 PM on November 8, 2024 [2 favorites]

I think for me it must have been reading Jonathan Livingston Seagull, at about age 10.
posted by hovey at 2:34 PM on November 8, 2024 [1 favorite]

All the Studio Ghibli films!

I saw Spirited Away in theatres when I was eleven, and I came out feeling very strange. I could not have articulated, at the time, the kind of sea change it produced in me (and indeed was not able to articulate it until I was in my twenties).

At eleven, I must've thought something like, "That was awesome, and made me have a lot of strong feelings, but I don't know why, and there were a lot of parts I didn't get." Yet I really liked that experience of being moved, but not quite "getting" why, and I began to search out other movies and books that made me feel that way, which was the beginning of my relationship with the numinous in art, and opened me up to a lot of amazing work.

Another film I watched at about the same age which made me feel the same way: The Triplets of Belleville.
posted by fire, water, earth, air at 2:35 PM on November 8, 2024 [3 favorites]

I don't mean to quibble with the premise, and hopefully you'll find this productive - but for me it was more of a practice than any individual work of art. My mom took me to art museums regularly growing up, often as day-trips (I grew up in Baltimore, so besides our art museums, D.C. and Philly were doable in a day). That's what got me into art. I mean, sure, some artists resonated with me as a younger kid more than others, but I imagine another kid would have different taste. Likewise, my dad had a record collection and listened to music all the time in the house. And access to a good indie video store (ah, remember those?) was crucial to getting into film. Also - my mom took me to art museums because she loved art (she was an art teacher) and she shared that enthusiasm - we spent that time together talking about art, at whatever level was appropriate for my age. My dad liked sharing music with me, because he really loves music. So I'd start by sharing your enthusiasm for whatever it is that you love - that's probably more effective than whatever it is that Mefites love.
posted by coffeecat at 2:37 PM on November 8, 2024 [2 favorites]

For me, it was Wim Wenders' WINGS OF DESIRE.

Our family received a VCR when I was 12 as a Christmas gift, and my parents were happy to sign me up at the video stores within biking distance to let me rent whatever I pleased short of "adult content". This resulted in an early interest in "arthouse film" that lasts to this day, as I rented BRAZIL, ERASERHEAD, KOYAANISQATSI and other seminal arthouse titles.

But a friend of mine, taking German classes at our high school, somehow convinced his teacher that as a young fan of "arthouse film", I (not enrolled in German classes) should be allowed to come along on a field trip to a screening of Wim Wenders' WINGS OF DESIRE. He was apparently convincing enough that this actually happened. I was somehow exempted from my class schedule to hop on the bus and go along with the German-language students to see it.

This was not a normal screening. In our community in the '80s, the downtown Sears had closed, and had been reclaimed by the local government as a potential future site for an arts complex. However, it had not yet been renovated in any way. We were led into the padlocked, abandoned Sears, up the inoperable escalators to the second floor, and sat in an empty hallway where rows of metal, folding seats faced a pull-down screen positioned before a 16mm projector, flanked by empty rows of clothing racks and the detritus of commerce.

We watched WINGS OF DESIRE. On 16mm film, in the middle of an abandoned Sears. It was, without question, one of the most transcendent moments of my life.

I've watched it again, several times, and watched it again last year. I've always been deeply moved by its humanity, romantic longing, and understanding of the geopolitcal world we live in. I would not hesitate to recommend it to an early teen.
posted by eschatfische at 2:41 PM on November 8, 2024 [6 favorites]

The Lloyd Alexander Chronicles of Prydain introduced me to big ideas as things that could be fun. The movie Room with a View (experienced a little later) keyed me in to ideas as influential to ones own way of life. Herman Hesse's Siddhartha - along with several novels I read for high school English like _My Name is Asher Lev_ - introduced me to diverse viewpoints and ideas I wouldn't have otherwise considered.
posted by ldthomps at 2:41 PM on November 8, 2024 [1 favorite]

I think this is VERY individual. For me, the Scott Walker album Tilt and Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man are probably the works that spring immediately to mind. But I am a very particular sort of person, and I think it was more that I was ready to engage with art on this level and that was the art that happened to cross my path.
posted by potrzebie at 2:44 PM on November 8, 2024

For me, it was taking classes on makings stuff, art in my case and learning just how much work and thought went into the process. Now even if I don't like a piece of art, I can still appreciate the thought and effort of something.
posted by Art_Pot at 2:46 PM on November 8, 2024

The works of Ray Bradbury were this for me in terms of literature Much of it was above my head but there was something about the language and depth I loved and connected with. I wanted more of it!

I also watched The Double Life of Veronique pretty soon after it came out -- I was probably 12 (and yes, I was the kind of 12-year-old who wanted to watch this movie. Bless my mother for letting me see it). I don't think I really understood it (I've watched it again within the past couple of years) but I remember being very taken with it.

Musically, I can kind of pinpoint listening to Tori Amos as a gateway into adulthood. Before that, I'd mostly been listening to pop (although I'd been a big Madonna fan). For me, it was fascinating hearing this woman sing about things in a mysterious way that I wanted to understand more.

(I was always a weird artsy kid, though, so these weren't huge revelations so much as doors opening.)
posted by edencosmic at 3:09 PM on November 8, 2024 [1 favorite]

the original deus ex, no question.
posted by AlbertCalavicci at 3:30 PM on November 8, 2024

Madeleine L'Engle, especially A Wrinkle in Time. I wanted to know more about all the authors Mrs. Who quoted. But I also loved literally all of her books.
posted by hydropsyche at 3:30 PM on November 8, 2024 [2 favorites]

Orwell's 1984, when I was ten. Aligned nicely with my growing realization that not all adults knew everything, or were to be a trusted authority.
posted by Capt. Renault at 3:35 PM on November 8, 2024

After learning how in the first place, Dune was the first book I really worked at reading. I would have been maybe eleven and I remember starting it, realizing a few chapters in that I didn't understand at all what was going on, and backing up and trying again multiple times before it came together and I could more-or-less get on with the story. Even at the time, it was a revelation how truly worthwhile that process was, and how much more layered a text could be than I'd ever encountered before.
posted by teremala at 4:01 PM on November 8, 2024

I think for me it must have been reading Jonathan Livingston Seagull, at about age 10.

Yes, me too.

Also, as I adored Jane Eyre, so reading Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys at around 12 years old blew my mind about a) a writer writing about characters from other novels, and b) the conditions a woman like Bertha must have endured under the sexism and racism of 19thC merchants et al. It was the beginning of when I began to question the premise and assumptions of dominant cultures.
posted by Thella at 5:05 PM on November 8, 2024

I read To Kill a Mockingbird quite young, more enjoying the escapades of the children when younger to understanding more of the story as I got older.
posted by AnnaRat at 5:20 PM on November 8, 2024

I was in 7th grade when we read A Separate Peace in English class. We spent a really long time on it, with the teacher guiding us through the process of seeking out different layers of meaning, symbolism, etc. I don’t think the book was especially noteworthy (except perhaps for being a useful pedagogical tool for that purpose), but I never read books the same way after that.
posted by adamrice at 5:25 PM on November 8, 2024

stranger in a strange land [g]
posted by HearHere at 5:39 PM on November 8, 2024 [1 favorite]

I've always maintained that Captains Courageous (link to free Project Gutenberg download - I hadn't realized until today that it was in the public domain!) helped me be less of a snotty teen than I could have been. It is by Rudyard Kipling, who is somewhat of a favorite of mine, but it doesn't have some of the English colonial attitudes that some complain about in his other works (let's leave discussion of those things out, it's not germane to this question).

I recommend book first, and then the excellent movie version with Spencer Tracy.
posted by TimHare at 7:57 PM on November 8, 2024

I specifically remember reading two books at around age 13 that did this for me: The Good Earth and East of Eden. The writing in both blew my mind. I recall learning from them that 1) holy shit, there really is a difference between books and literature, and 2) literature isn't something inaccessible that's only for highly educated grown ups, but it can and should be entertaining and enjoyable storytelling. It gave me the confidence to level up from YA to general fiction and I never looked back in terms of limiting myself to reading so-called age appropriate novels.
posted by CheeseLouise at 10:44 PM on November 8, 2024 [3 favorites]

Way before I knew what design was and from age about 9 to ~14 I was fascinated with military and space uniforms and equipment and always wondered why there was so much difference between US UK German & Soviet items, and Soviet and US space suits - I had a many many military books. Why were they so different? I never at the time answered it but it was one of the hooks that long term led to a design career.

I didn't carry on design from school as the only design I knew of well was armaments (grandfather was a bombmaker and designer), and even then I said to myself I'd never design to kill. Even though it feels even now so easy to design destruction compared with creating beauty.
posted by unearthed at 11:25 PM on November 8, 2024

As a kid that spent a lot of time in the woods, and read A Lot, I picked up The Last of the Mohicans (who knows why, it wasn’t an assignment.) I remember thinking this must be great writing because I was reading in the bus and was transported by the book to being in the woods with the characters. I am aware now that it’s likely A problematic book, but as a 10 or 11 year old I had an epiphany that there could be masterful writing, not just entertaining/engaging prose.
posted by childofTethys at 5:33 AM on November 9, 2024

The Best of Life 1975 (photos 1936-1972) - I looked deeply at this book a lot between the age of 7-10. You can see many of the same photos in this 2003 reissue, along with newer additions. (CW/NSFW: dead bodies, war, war killing, disease, suicide, hanging/lynching, napalm, chemical poisoning health impacts, nudity.) From that content warning, you can tell that many of the images in the book are horrific. The book also has the first images of Earth, the first photographic images, photos of nature, scientific achievement, the variety of places on earth, human achievement, many countries' civil rights movements, photos as fine art, photos documenting family life, love, daily life (city, rural, country), fashion, photos that documented social issues and political movements, and photos that galvanized them.

We were a house of books, but this is one I came back to frequently. It has influenced so much of my life. My opinions about right and wrong. About power. About who gets away with doing bad things. About politics, gender, the environment, and very much my opinions about war. Beyond that, I absorbed by osmosis principles of light, composition, movement, color, and the 'decisive moment.' It informed what I thought I would do with my life, what I have done with my life, and what I think is worth doing.

The other books that open my world more than the weight of their paper and ink would suggest were The Annotated Alice by Martin Gardner, which I received as a gift when I was 13; Dune, which cracked my brain open to environmental adaptation and engineering and the multi-level playerdom of politics; and Ray Bradbury as above for his big ideas. I added Ted Chiang to that list for giving to my own kids, along with No One Is Talking About This (Patricia Lockwood), Koyaanisqatsi, and Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner.
posted by cocoagirl at 6:18 AM on November 9, 2024 [2 favorites]

I came here to recommend His Dark Materials, and Philip Pullman in general, but also Michael Morpurgo.
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 1:47 PM on November 9, 2024

This would be the early- to mid-1970s for me.

Everything at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis: Chuck Close, Nam Jun Paik, Claes Oldenburg, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauchenberg. My family visited all the time.

With a limited bookshelf, certainly not built for kids, Dante's Inferno (oh, man) and Portnoy's Complaint during a couple of rural summers. Also Wallace Stevens's The Big Rock Candy Mountain and John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath.

All the Whole Earth Catalogs.

First recorded music: The Beatles 1962-1966 and 1967-1970, enjoyed with other little kids gathered around the record player without adult supervision in third grade. First concert attended just with young friends: Leo Kottke, probably in fourth grade. First movie like that: Monty Python and the Holy Grail in fifth grade.

Sixth grade in a 6-12 grade school: My bus arrived early and I'd hang out in the library with the older kids, learning about The New Yorker and Alan Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac and B. Traven. And all of Kurt Vonnegut.

(Edit: No women! That's probably pretty accurate, but I also read a bunch of Emily Dickenson in those years.)

I feel so blessed by the lack of censorship and adult guidance and the invitation to be a confidently independent and voracious culture consumer during those years. Thank you, Malhouse, for prompting me to dream back up this list.
posted by Scarf Joint at 6:19 PM on November 9, 2024

*And during those rural summers, also dipping into Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow, which the mother of some friends at a farm down the road was reading. I still haven't ever finished it, but a screaming definitely came across my eight-year-old sky.
posted by Scarf Joint at 6:30 PM on November 9, 2024

That age range is 65 years ago for me so its hard to remember. But the Hornblower books were the first I ever took out of the library, so I got hooked into sea stories. It was Kenneth Roberts who took me from adventure to history, and portayals of New England life in the years around 1800. I remember my shock when a character who wanted to go home to Maine from Boston set out on foot. (When Benjamin Franklin ran away from home in his teens, he walked across New Jersey.)
posted by SemiSalt at 6:31 PM on November 9, 2024

The Last Emperor by Bertolucci for me. I probably cried at many movies as a young child but this was the first movie to really move me and make me feel real grief and sadness for the protagonist.
posted by LittleLadybug at 11:22 PM on November 12, 2024