amazon forums

[rm]

So I've been participating in the Amazon forums a bit over the last couple of days, mostly in the HP topics for reasons that should be obvious, but also, because it shows up on the page for my book, on requests for reading recs for teens. Most of the requests are either from teen girls themselves looking for more challenging books and apologizing for seeming bratty for saying they have a high reading level or from parents emphasizing the need to find SAFE and CLEAN books for said teen girls.

All of this makes me by turns unspeakably sad and angry. Because books are always safe and never safe. And I think people are afraid not that these girls will discover ideas and characters which are foreign, adult and theoretically disturbing, but that in reading these girls will find out that they are not singular, defective or naughty, but capable and covetous.

I am SO GLAD I grew up without the Internet and clear backpacks and cell phones and everything having to be checked and cross-checked for the so-called safety, cleanliness and morality of my private thoughts.

Comments

[awe-struck.livejournal.com]

As a parent, I have found that some things go over the kid's head if you don't make a big deal of it. E started watching CSI when she was 11. There was a rape story in one of the episodes. Dad was upset she watched it. I asked her if she new what rape was. "Yes, it is when you steal someone's panties." I explained that rape is forcing someone to have sex. If we had never asked her, rape would have been stealing someone's panties. Not a bad definition for 11, but eventually she needs to know more.

I do feel it is more important to talk about the content of the media, whateverr it is, than to be scared by it. Last night, she brought me a book that she thought was beyond her grade level and shouldn't have been in her school library. Why? It contained curse words. Now,keep in mind the story line had a teacher stealing money from the school. I found it interesting that the theft idea didn't bother her, but the language did. More important, she understood the concepts, understood the teacher was wrong and SHE READ for six hours yesterday.

I have rattled more than I meant to. Bottom line, safe is in the eye of the beholder and as long as there is thought nothing is safe.