Pegasus, by Robin McKinley

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I received an advance copy of Robin McKinley's new book, Pegasus. I've been reading slowly, trying to stretch the story. I already know the end is a cliff-hanger, and that the conclusion to the story will be a while in coming, as book two still has the author banging her head on her desk, and won't be out until this time next year. But I also know it will be worth the wait, because this is a delicious and magical story. It wraps around you with an intimate and honest narrative voice that makes the fantastical elements seem very real, a voice that I think developed at least a little bit because Robin McKinley has taken to blogging with similar honesty and grit about her own life.

Her blog and the book have some strong points in common: whimsical details, keen observations, and a admirable narrator who is uniquely herself. The story is truly original, and the pegasii are not generic mythical creatures, but believable beings with an intricate and fascinating alien culture. First person narration is tricky, and I used to think that you had to sacrifice beautiful writing if a book was done in the first person, but I am proven wrong by Pegasus, which is beautifully told and as finely wrought as anything the Pegasii themselves might make. The story is a gift, and I feel privileged to be reading it.

Protecting Children from Getting the Wrong Ideas

It’s Banned Books Week again. I’ve just finished reading Lois Lowry’s The Giver, which has been one of the most challenged books in the country several times since being published in 1993. Parents made a concerted effort to have it removed from the reading list at in the district neighboring my own when I was in school.

So there’s that. People never seem to tire of trying to keep ideas they don’t like away from kids. The most recent hot button is the attempt to ban Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak.

Pulling the books from library shelves and reading lists is one way that people try to keep ideas from harming kids. Editing the harmful ideas out of the material is another. Honestly, I didn’t even know the later was a popular option until I saw it discussed in a YA lit blog entry.

Philip Nel, English professor and children’s literature commentator, frames the issue on his blog. He teaches a course about censorship of kid’s lit that he says is about “what you can and can’t say in literature for children and young adults.” And it seems that if you say the wrong thing, many people feel it is their right and responsibility to ensure that children will never know it.

This treatment canned be used as a fix for most books on the Most Challenged list, but beloved classics are being reissued with a new coat of paint that is meant to obscure the overt signs of values that would disturb most modern readers. Plenty of thoughtful people are considering the validity and effectiveness of this approach, and they seem to be coming to the same conclusion. It is better to supervise how kid’s experience the original than to give them tidied up versions. I agree, as far as that goes, but I still think they’re missing the point.

We are not giving kids enough credit. Yes, they should learn to read critically, and it’s great for them to get to talk about some of what they’re reading with their parents, but if we look over their shoulder at most of what they are reading, we will being taking something valuable away from them. There is an experience you can have of a story that can’t happen if someone is guiding and monitoring your reactions. The personal meaning you find, and all the connections to your own experience. The most important books in my life were like personal treasures. Didn’t we all read these same classics? We grew up to be thoughtful, conscientious people who care about books and care about children and care what kind of people they will grow to be. We did it with those imperfect stories as part of what got us here. The children we want so much to protect are capable of doing the same.