When Do You Turn Children On To Art?

Have we become too protective introducing children to difficult art? “I do worry about exposing children to literature, films and theatre before they are ready – and I am particularly jumpy about violent films. But how do you decide when a child is ‘ready’ for a film? It is fascinatingly ambiguous. The extraordinary thing is that works of art – especially books – change according to age. A book read at 18, reread at 48, may seem entirely different. Age is part of what we bring to a work of art.”