What We Don't Know about Children

by Simona Vinci

Book Overview

A best-seller in Italy, where it sparked intense debate, Simona Vinci's first novel was awarded the prestigious Elsa Morante Prize and subsequently was acquired by publishers around the world. Clearly... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0375404112
• ISBN13: 9780375404115
• Release Date: June 2000
• Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
• Length: 155 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.3" x 7.8"

Customer Reviews

quite the scary story of adolence

A bone chilling coming of age story - seemingly innocent children, polluted by adult influence and sexual images, are capable of atrocities that nightmares are made of.....I know it gave me a few. The novel starts with a forelorn ten-year old, Katrina, singing alone and wondering why no one of her old crowd gets together anymore. When you finish the story you realize just how creepy the beginning of the story was and how accurately it foretells the horrors to come. One reviewer complained about how they felt no connection to the characters in this story - that would be an extremely good thing! The whole point of this story is how the adult world perverted the innocent fumblings of budding sexuality and created these cold unfeeling and scarred children who will turn into scary adults. The usual intimacy associated with these forays are turned into isolating and cold sexual deviant acts. What effect would this experience have on young impressionable children? The answer is given with no holds barred. I appreciated the way this disturbing subject was dealt with - there is no tabloid graphic storytelling here yet the horror is still relayed. Should we stand back in abhorrence and point accusing fingers or take responsibility? This story is set in the countryside of Italy but the setting could be anywhere, don't fool yourself. If you deny the possibility then have something in common with the parents of these children who were sent out to play in the courtyard.

Sex among the 10-year-olds

This is a genuine horror story for parents, because it's as real as the possibility of your children and some of the neighborhood kids they've grown up with being out of sight for a few hours each day. In brief, it's about a 10-year-old girl who becomes the playmate of a 15-year-old boy and his friends. It goes downhill from there. Fantasy? Not likely. It's real. A child does not have to be very old to play "Let's put the car in the garage." Kids are infinitely curious. This isn't a parable about what kids are liable do when they're left alone; it's a horror story about parents' fears of the modern world. Back in 1954, at the height of fears about the Cold War, atomic bomb and the very real horrors from the atrocities of World War II, William Golding wrote "Lord of the Flies." It was about a group of British boys stranded on a desert isle who turn to utter primitive savagery among themselves, a parable of the nuclear age. Now, the Cold War has gone away. In its place, we have blatant sexuality in films, on TV and saturating the ad industry. Lingerie ads in today's family magazines are more daring than explicit pictures would have been in "men's magazines" in 1954. Kids see it all; most ignore it, laugh it off or reject it. Some don't. That is the premise of Simona Vinci's story. There was never any proof that `Lord of the Flies' could become real. No group of British schoolboys was ever abandoned on a deserted island to see how they would react without adult supervision. The premise of Golding's story was that all people are savages just under the shallow veneer of civilization. Today, are 15-year-old boys left alone? Are 10-year-old girls in sight at all times. If not, what are they doing? Would you trust your 10-year-old with a 15-year old from just down the block? Especially one with his own motorbike. When did the game end and what took your kids so long to get home? When does choir practice end and how long does it take your kids to get home? How innocent are modern kids? Watch Jerry Springer or any of his clones to learn what kids know and do on their own. Remember, your kids are also watching Springer? This isn't a "Forever" by Judy Blume, an idyllic picture of tender consensual sex among teenyboppers. It isn't about "Speak" by Laurie Haise Anderson, about a ninth-grader who's been raped. There are any number of fact-based books describing real life; Vinci writes a horror story, "this could be happening ..." Blume implies teen sex is wonderful, sweet, gentle and innocent; Vinci says 10-year-old girls can be used and abused by 15-year-old boys, and the result isn't nice. In 1954, "Lord of the Flies" was hailed by critics and sold all of 2,500 copies in its first US edition. It wasn't until 1959, when it was published as a paperback and picked up by teens and college students, that became a runaway success. After all, it couldn't really be true. The same needs to hap