The Swiss Family Robinson
Acceptable with guidance. Age: 10+. A Catholic review of this book for parents.
Our review
A family from Switzerland is shipwrecked on an island with no one else around. The father, mother and four boys build a tree house, tame animals and grow food. They pray together and thank God every day. The boys hunt and kill a lot of animals, so it is best for kids about nine and up. The best thing here is a father who leads his family in prayer and work, and a home that is cheerful in hardship. The faith is sincere Protestant piety, so the Church and the sacraments are absent. The hunting is constant and sometimes graphic. Choose your edition with care and read it together.
For parents
Read aloud from about seven or eight, skipping the roughest hunting scenes for tender children. Independent reading of the full old text from ten or eleven, since the language is old-fashioned. An adapted edition suits younger readers. Three things to talk through. First, the boys shoot first and look later, and one parent guide describes an animal being beheaded. God gave us care of animals. We may use them for food, and killing them for waste is wrong. Second, the boys are given small amounts of alcohol, as was common then. Third, the book calls native peoples 'savages'. Every person is made in God's image. Then praise what is good: the family prays, rests on Sunday and thanks God. Add what they lack on the island, which is Mass and the sacraments.