From: lmollett@lunatix.uucp (Laura Mollett)
Subject: Re: SF + PC
Organization: Lexington Public Access Unix. -KY- (606) 255-9121
Date: Tue, 05 Jan 1993 20:15:46 GMT

In article <1993Jan4.145318.47465@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu> jahb@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu (JENNIFER A. HEISE) writes:
>>Laura Mollett writes:
[my original letter deleted]
>Quite honestly, the librarian is doing what I hope I would do myself.  She
>feels slightly uneasy about Amanda's choice of what are, to put it kindly,
>fluff books-- marshmallow of the mind next to which old Scholastic pbs. pale.
>So, she offers to point out some other books to Amanda and/or you.  I suspect
>that she is not asking you to choose Amanda's reading, but to "guide" her,
>just as you would in TV watching: Well, here are some books that the librarian
>claims are interesting. Amanda, do any of these sound interesting to you?
>
I really am having trouble understanding why anyone should feel "slightly
uneasy" about a child (or anyone for that matter) choosing to read "fluff"
books - and would say that "marshmallow of the mind" is a relative term in
this case considering that the books that she was permitted to check out of
the library previously were not the least bit challenging to her (Dr. Suess
and that ilk - wonderful books, but too easy for her current vocabulary,
reading comprehension, _and_ attention level).  These books have words she
doesn't know (and asks about), and ideas that she wants explained as well as
requiring her more than a half-hour to read.  She's certainly exercising her
mind quite a bit more than she was previously (at least as she would have been
had she limited herself to what was available from her school library - which
of course, she didn't).

Myself, I feel _very_ uneasy about all the children in our neighborhood and
elsewhere who, for one reason or another, won't read _anything_ unless
absolutely forced, and have a difficult time even then.  I would hope that
a librarian's major purpose would be to help instill a love of reading, and I
really can't see that implying that the works which interest a child are 
somehow less than satisfactory because of the _subject matter_ (as opposed
to the reading level) is going to help instill that love.

I'm not particularly inclined to "guide" her reading.  She reads, quite well
actually, and enjoys it and that's really what I want for her.  However, if
she were choosing works that were (as someone mentioned in email) racist, or
sexist, or contained mature concepts about sex, drugs, drinking etc., I might
have a discussion with her about what she found appealing about these works
etc.  I doubt, even then, that I would forbid her to read them, but I suppose
discussing it could be construed as discouraging.  I'm not actually
over-inclined to guide their TV watching either - other than the fact that I
obviously must not consider TV very important as I spend so little of my time
watching it, refuse to spend extra money on it (i.e. purchase cable) etc.  I
did (once) forbid a show to my oldest child (a boy).  He was watching the
He-Man cartoon every afternoon (luckily no longer on the air) which I
found horribly sexist, and after a show where He-Man caught Skeletor (the
bad guy) and wouldn't kill him (He-man is too good to kill) and wouldn't
_jail_ him (he would just get out anyway) and so let him go, I blew up and
wouldn't let him which it anymore (I really object to the idea that bad guys
can do what they please, and will receive no punishment because good guys are
too good to punish them).  This accomplished no useful purpose whatsoever.  It
just made Jason bound and determined to continue to be interested in it.  _He_
liked it and didn't understand the objections I had to it (at that time...I 
think he was around 4).  I would have been much better off to have just told
him why it upset me, understood that he liked it anyway, and let it go, but ah
well, the first child is always a training ground.  I'm smarter now - NOT :).

Anyway, back to the subject at hand, feeling uneasy that someone is reading
"fluff" implies (to my mind) that you don't read any?  _I_ read lots of books
that would fall under that label and did as a child.  I have even labeled books
as "fluff" (ok, now I'm feeling badly because I called the Anne Rice "Lestat"
books "fluff" - I apologise :)  I don't really believe they are marshmellow
of the mind.  Perhaps "genre books" is a better term, and they often lead me
to read more, hmm, "difficult" works.  I also play role-playing games (I can
hear gasps of disgust, considering the comment earlier about rpg novelisations)
and use them majorally as an excuse to research particular subjects.  I was
recently stuck for a character for a new game.  My husband handed me a pile
of "genre" books (early 1900's action/adventure) and said to read them...I
read some stuff and came up with a character, a Jewish anthropologist (don't
ask :).  Well, I don't know anywhere near enough about Judaism to play this
adequately (part of the reason why I choose it), so the "genre" books went
away and sitting at my feet waiting for me to read them are:
_Anthology of Jewish Mysticism_, _The Sacred Writings of the World's Great
Religions_, _Living Religions_, _The Women of Genesis_, _Stories from Ancient 
Canaan_, _A Manual of Babylonian Jewish Aramaic_, _Tanakh - the Holy Scriptures_
and _Jesus Within Judaism_.

I have mentioned to several people in email that my son acquired his interest
in mythology from reading comic books.  I've never implied to him that comics
weren't adequate material, tho I did tell him where to find more information
when he wanted it, and explain to him how and why some of his information about
Thor et. al. was "wrong"
.
>I, personally, have always found reading lists useful as suggestions. This may
>come of my mother's ambition: that we both read all the Newbery Award winners.
>She's still at it.
>
Reading lists certainly _can_ be useful as suggestions.  What I object to is
the idea that there is something inherently "wrong" with what the child _wants_
to read.  She certainly doesn't limit herself to "fluff" and neither do I 
(and admittedly the librarian may not know this as she has only just allowed
Amanda to check out anything more difficult than an "easy" book).  When I was
a child, our school had a "Newbery Club."  You read a Newbery (is this spelled
correctly?) book and wrote a "report" on it.  There were 3 levels, reading 25,
50, or 75 Newbery books put one on a different level.  I belonged to the 75
book club and read many that I _didn't_ write reports on.  I also read Nancy
Drew, Hardy Boys, Beverly Cleary, Science Fiction/Fantasy/Action books, and
"teenage" romance novels.  I had plenty of time to read "good stuff" and  
"fluff" and I can't honestly say that I didn't get anything out of reading the
junk.  At that time science fiction was considered "not appropriate", but
it certainly gave me an abiding interest in science, chemistry, history,
anthropolgy, and most importantly, reading.  Amanda also reads "good stuff" -
she's read (and sometimes been helped to read) _Charlotte's Web_, _Alice in
Wonderland_, _Just-So Stories_, the "colored" Fairy Tale Books (well several),
_A Wrinkle in Time_, 2 (so far) of the Lloyd Alexander books, and her favorite
Christmas present was a non-fiction book called _Writing it Down_ (a wonderful
book about where we get the materials we write with) and spent some time 
asking me "did I know...about graphite, lead, crayons etc.?"  She wants more
"like that one" :)...and lots of other stuff I'm sure I'm forgetting to 
mention.  My husband works for a college book wholesalers and he gets loads of
books at a much reduced price...including many Newbery Books which adorn our
children's bookshelves (not to mention that whole set of children's classics).
She has more than enough to choose from, if she likes.

Well this is entirely too long, and I'm anxious to find out more about 
Judaism, so later,
				Laura