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reader advisory versus privacy
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From: Barbara Tobin <barbarat>
Date: Wed, 07 May 2003 14:35:25 -0400
Martha wrote:
<I found the above scene rather irritating and verging on irresponsible. The bookstore owner implied that in the book there is actually a scene where we see this horrible act of incest. In fact, there isn't such a scene. The child of the union is a character in the book from the beginning and the revelation of who his mother is is revealed near the end of the book. As it is a crucial revelation for understanding the character of the mother, the store owner not only misrepresented the book, but gave away an important plot point.>
Martha, please don't judge the bookstore owner (BO) on a small slice of my reconstructed, paraphrased memory of that brief incident. It is probably more a matter of me misrepresenting the actual dialogue, than the BO misrepresenting the book. I was more focused on the point about the child's self-selecting/regulating of edgy YA fiction .
I didn't stress the good working relationships with these three readers over time, that the BO is a trusted long term advisor of the mother and daughter, and fellow booklover, definitely not into censoring, but always trying to find a 'good fit' for every child reader. It was the mother doing the all the negotiating--she really pushed the BO, who in the end felt the need to offer a more concrete explanation as to why she didn't think this book might be the best fit at this time. If it had been the child wanting the book, that would have been different. As it was, the girl showed absolutely no interest in it--didn't even get up to go look at it to consider it. Likely she wanted to make her own discoveries. And who knows, maybe she would have picked this one up herself, and even enjoyed it, without being scarred for life.
I was actually impressed with the BO for not pushing an easy sale. I thought that was very responsible behavior from that perspective, that she would put reader satisfaction/comfort above financial gain.
Reader advisory is a delicate balancing act at the best of times, and more complicated when a parent is involved at the chalk face. When a pre?olescent child makes a book selection in private, there's often a gatekeeper at the checkout (bookstore, library, classroom, home...).
On your other point, granted, vital plot revelations can indeed be annoying. I get VERY irriated by the frequent, and often unnecessary exposure of plot twists in those big children's literture textbooks that ruin the tension and reading delight of many of my own students who stumble across these in their text readings before they get to the novels-- I guess this is one reason not to have them spend all that money and all those hours reading these texts instead of the literature itself!
Barbara Tobin (barbarat at gse.upenn.edu)
Received on Wed 07 May 2003 01:35:25 PM CDT
Date: Wed, 07 May 2003 14:35:25 -0400
Martha wrote:
<I found the above scene rather irritating and verging on irresponsible. The bookstore owner implied that in the book there is actually a scene where we see this horrible act of incest. In fact, there isn't such a scene. The child of the union is a character in the book from the beginning and the revelation of who his mother is is revealed near the end of the book. As it is a crucial revelation for understanding the character of the mother, the store owner not only misrepresented the book, but gave away an important plot point.>
Martha, please don't judge the bookstore owner (BO) on a small slice of my reconstructed, paraphrased memory of that brief incident. It is probably more a matter of me misrepresenting the actual dialogue, than the BO misrepresenting the book. I was more focused on the point about the child's self-selecting/regulating of edgy YA fiction .
I didn't stress the good working relationships with these three readers over time, that the BO is a trusted long term advisor of the mother and daughter, and fellow booklover, definitely not into censoring, but always trying to find a 'good fit' for every child reader. It was the mother doing the all the negotiating--she really pushed the BO, who in the end felt the need to offer a more concrete explanation as to why she didn't think this book might be the best fit at this time. If it had been the child wanting the book, that would have been different. As it was, the girl showed absolutely no interest in it--didn't even get up to go look at it to consider it. Likely she wanted to make her own discoveries. And who knows, maybe she would have picked this one up herself, and even enjoyed it, without being scarred for life.
I was actually impressed with the BO for not pushing an easy sale. I thought that was very responsible behavior from that perspective, that she would put reader satisfaction/comfort above financial gain.
Reader advisory is a delicate balancing act at the best of times, and more complicated when a parent is involved at the chalk face. When a pre?olescent child makes a book selection in private, there's often a gatekeeper at the checkout (bookstore, library, classroom, home...).
On your other point, granted, vital plot revelations can indeed be annoying. I get VERY irriated by the frequent, and often unnecessary exposure of plot twists in those big children's literture textbooks that ruin the tension and reading delight of many of my own students who stumble across these in their text readings before they get to the novels-- I guess this is one reason not to have them spend all that money and all those hours reading these texts instead of the literature itself!
Barbara Tobin (barbarat at gse.upenn.edu)
Received on Wed 07 May 2003 01:35:25 PM CDT
