Readers

On JoLee's suggestion, I have been following Shannon Hale's thoughts on how to be a reader. She is an author from Utah, mostly young adult books, and her writing is wonderful (in my humble opinion). I have been truely interested in her thoughts and wanted to comment about her most recent post: Moralizing. http://oinks.squeetus.com/2008/09/how-to-be-a-r-3.html

Quick summary: Do authors intentionally write books with morals? Are authors responsible for the morals we take from their stories? She talks about her own writing. She is story driven and does not intentionally moralize. She believes morals are taken by the reader depending on what they need the book to tell them at that point.

I agree. I believe this is true in all forms of art. What you take from that art depends on your life experiences as much as what is before you. Does this mean it's the author's responsibility? No. I think authors should write responsibly. If you are writing a book for children, make it age-appropriate but don't skirt difficult issues just because you are concerned about the reader's reaction. Shannon comments on her post that children understand when they are reading fiction and i feel this is 100% true. I recently had this conversation with my dad. Children know that fantasy is fantasy and they have the ability (speaking generally) to separate it from reality. They have agency. They can interpret a book in their own way and take what they need from it.

I hope we never assume that books or art can only have one interpretation. Not everyone thinks the same and so each of us is free to take from books the things that we need. Thank you if you have kept with me. I just needed to sort out these thoughts. If you found any of them interesting, check out Shannon's blog (see above).