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Re: How much to tell
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From: Lynn Rutan <lynnrutan_at_charter.net>
Date: Tue, 22 Nov 2011 07:55:39 -0500
I am so grateful for all the viewpoints here on this thorny issue as I think it is one we have all dealt with in some way or other.
I’d like to second or third or fourth the comments on children’s abilities to self-censor. As a middle school librarian I have watched them do that over and over. Either they skim over something they aren’t ready for or don’t fully comprehend or they bring the book back, often telling me that it is for an “older” student.
But there is a related issue that I’d like to mention and that is the imperative need to know that drives children. So many of our middle school students are developmentally at the point of understanding that the world is a wider and more complex place than their family and school experience and many of them have a fierce drive to make sense of it. We have always had a huge demand for books on the holocaust, slavery, abused children and war at the middle level and I think it is really part of the need to see and understand the world. They want to understand the dark side of our world and I think it is important that they find these issues acknowledged and presented in books for them. How much and how graphic is, of course, the Damocles Sword but in today’s world, students can and will find sources of information - most of them written for adults. I really believe that we need to be straight-forward with kids about issues. They know they are out there, they are curious, they want to understand the WHY of what happens. We do them no service when we gloss over the facts.
I grew up in the 50’s and early 60’s looong before computer resources. In my family no one talked about the Holocaust. It was, however, an elephant in the room and my parents and grandparents never wanted to talk about branches of the family. As a child I knew something awful had happened but I had no idea what and it terrified me. I will never forget how excited I was when we moved to Boston and I discovered that the Belmont Public Library had no restrictions about what kids could check out! My previous library had very little on the subject that I could access and here were vast resources at hand. I had nightmares for weeks but at the same time I remember feeling so relieved that at last I knew something about it! In today’s world with the internet at hand, children have such unlimited access. It is SO much better to give them materials that have been written specifically for them.
My hat is off to all of you who write about challenging issues for children. I know the question of what and how much is enormously complicated but I really believe we must trust and respect their drive to understand.
Lynn Rutan Bookends - Booklist Online Youth Blog lynnrutan_at_charter.net
Received on Tue 22 Nov 2011 07:55:39 AM CST
Date: Tue, 22 Nov 2011 07:55:39 -0500
I am so grateful for all the viewpoints here on this thorny issue as I think it is one we have all dealt with in some way or other.
I’d like to second or third or fourth the comments on children’s abilities to self-censor. As a middle school librarian I have watched them do that over and over. Either they skim over something they aren’t ready for or don’t fully comprehend or they bring the book back, often telling me that it is for an “older” student.
But there is a related issue that I’d like to mention and that is the imperative need to know that drives children. So many of our middle school students are developmentally at the point of understanding that the world is a wider and more complex place than their family and school experience and many of them have a fierce drive to make sense of it. We have always had a huge demand for books on the holocaust, slavery, abused children and war at the middle level and I think it is really part of the need to see and understand the world. They want to understand the dark side of our world and I think it is important that they find these issues acknowledged and presented in books for them. How much and how graphic is, of course, the Damocles Sword but in today’s world, students can and will find sources of information - most of them written for adults. I really believe that we need to be straight-forward with kids about issues. They know they are out there, they are curious, they want to understand the WHY of what happens. We do them no service when we gloss over the facts.
I grew up in the 50’s and early 60’s looong before computer resources. In my family no one talked about the Holocaust. It was, however, an elephant in the room and my parents and grandparents never wanted to talk about branches of the family. As a child I knew something awful had happened but I had no idea what and it terrified me. I will never forget how excited I was when we moved to Boston and I discovered that the Belmont Public Library had no restrictions about what kids could check out! My previous library had very little on the subject that I could access and here were vast resources at hand. I had nightmares for weeks but at the same time I remember feeling so relieved that at last I knew something about it! In today’s world with the internet at hand, children have such unlimited access. It is SO much better to give them materials that have been written specifically for them.
My hat is off to all of you who write about challenging issues for children. I know the question of what and how much is enormously complicated but I really believe we must trust and respect their drive to understand.
Lynn Rutan Bookends - Booklist Online Youth Blog lynnrutan_at_charter.net
Received on Tue 22 Nov 2011 07:55:39 AM CST
