From: Regina Pauly <paulyr>
Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 16:05:53 -0500

I want to make several points this month. The first is that I don't think I have every been offended by any work of literature. For instance, I recently read "how I live now" by Meg Rosoff and at first I m noticed the sex between the cousins and I wasn't sure how I felt. I found it interesting that I seemed to be more concerned because they were cousins then because they were having sex just weeks after meeting. By the end of the book I was glad that Daisy went back to England to Edward, and I was happy that they had formed that strong relationshio before the war. I wanted Daisy to be able to help Edward in the end. At that point I didn't care that they were cousins anymore, and instead felt they were meant to be together. So I think well written books make you care about the characters or plot so much that societal mores seem irrelevant.

Another reason why I don't think literature offends is that as a child I always wanted to grow up quickly and so I was reading what my older sisters were. I just didn't get a lot of the stories. Sex was outside my experience so I was only able to comprehend to the level I knew about, or was willing to go. I've read "Little Women" in third grade, in high school, in college, in graduate school, and each time I took different things from the story. I am truly a reader-response fan because I do believe reading is the interaction between the text and the reader. If a person takes something from the book it is only partly due to the book.

As a librarian I try to buy the more controversial literature because I believe those stories usually are the most powerful. I have my challenge book form ready but I have never needed to use it although I readily recommend titles that some consider offensive. In a college it is now more difficult to do but I've read "Walter the Farting Dog" to a class. I just want to expand people's awareness of the materials available to them. People are always telling me how wonderful these books/materials are. Early in my career I did have a parent concerned because her seven-year-old daughter had checked out "Hiroshima No Pika" which I had on display at the time being a new book then. She said I should put a warning on the book because it gave her daughter nightmares. I said I was concerned with putting a warning on a book but agreed with her it was a terrifying book. I fortunately had read the book and so was able to say that yes, it was frightening, but isn't that how war is. I said maybe her child would grow up to be a peace activist because of this book and how much the world needed people who recognized the horrors of war. It turned out the woman was a Quaker so what I said happened to gel with her beliefs. Her daughter turned out to be a voracious reader who later that summer won the Philadelphia Inquirer award for best child reader for someone her age - so I think with her reading about thirty or more books a week that "Hiroshima No Pika" probably did no permanent damage.

I guess I believe that books have a power, but only if you let them.

Regina Pauly Curriculum Librarian University of Wisconsin - Platteville paulyr at uwplatt.edu
Received on Mon 27 Jun 2005 04:05:53 PM CDT