And what started all of this was a guy asking if there were advance copies for his group of gifted kids. And then man #2 saying he should read better stuff in class with said gifted kids. Isn’t it great where conversations go?

As long as the kids are READING, understanding and liking their books, I say go for it as you know, I promote reading, and fantasy reading is pretty rocktastic

One example would be “The Lord of the Rings”. I read it in German when I was about 8-9 years old, then read it about once a year. After about three years of learning English at school, I switched to the English original, again reading it about once a year. I must have been around 12 at that point.

I enjoyed the book every single read. And every single read, I discovered something new about it – my mastery of English was growing, my patience with “boring” descriptive passages was growing, and my general ability to process what I was reading was growing.

Nowadays, it’s still a great book to me, but very different from when I was a child. But being able to watch yourself understand the same book in a wholly new way – that’s priceless.

Now a fantasy book like this is comparatively “safe”, in that it allows you to view any atrocity committed in the course of the plot through the veil of make-belief. It’s happening in an imaginary world, not ours – to an extent.

To stay with the fantasy theme I started, “The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever” aren’t half as easy to digest as LOTR.

I think my point is that it’s fine to encourage gifted kids to go beyond what their peers are doing, as long as you stay aware that they’re kids. Their mental processes might be fantastically advanced, but that doesn’t mean that they’re emotionally adult.

Though really… I had access to just about any book in my dad’s library, and I didn’t *like* the ones that were quite plainly beyond me. So really, if you keep an eye on what your child enjoys, you’re likely in a good enough place.