{"id":74703,"date":"2014-06-17T08:00:51","date_gmt":"2014-06-17T13:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=74703"},"modified":"2014-06-16T18:34:47","modified_gmt":"2014-06-16T23:34:47","slug":"if-its-not-pleasurable-dont-read-it-being-a-readers-advocate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=74703","title":{"rendered":"If it\u2019s Not Pleasurable, Don\u2019t Read It: Being a Reader\u2019s Advocate"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Amelia Zavala Vander Heide, Head Editor,\u00a0INALJ NYC<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

If it\u2019s Not Pleasurable, Don\u2019t Read It: Being a Reader\u2019s Advocate<\/span><\/h3>\n

\"amelia_vanderheide\"<\/a>I was recently approached by a teen with an unusual question: \u201cHow do you\u00a0get through Faulkner?\u201d At first I was taken aback. How do you answer such a\u00a0question? Secondly, having been a History major, I had taken only two English Lit\u00a0classes in college, so I never read Faulkner. When she responded that the book\u00a0was not for class, but for pleasure, and she was finding it rather difficult, I responded,\u00a0\u201cI\u2019m a librarian. And as a librarian, I am a firm believer in reading for pleasure\u2013 If it\u2019s\u00a0not pleasurable, don\u2019t read it.\u201d<\/p>\n

I started thinking about my conversation with this particular teen more and more,\u00a0especially in the wake of the Ruth Graham\u2019s polarizing Slate article, Against YA:\u00a0Read Whatever You Want. But You Should Feel Embarrassed When What You\u2019re\u00a0Reading Was Written for Children<\/a>. All I want to do is get kids, teens, and parents\u00a0to read more. Read magazines, read books, even read Reddit because they find\u00a0it enjoyable. I just want everyone to read. Some things Graham presented in the\u00a0article I agree with, primarily the summation of The Fault in Our Stars. This is one\u00a0teen librarian who did not enjoy the book. There was a lot more I disagree with, from\u00a0the condescending tone to the assumption that most adult readers were reading\u00a0great adult literature to begin with.<\/p>\n

Being an avid reader myself, obviously, and having worked with, befriended, and\u00a0met dozens upon dozens of reader over the years, I am here to say most people\u00a0are not reading Tolstoy or Jonathan Franzen. Our most popular adult books in the\u00a0library are romance, sci-fi\/fantasy, and mysteries. Not the genre defining hardcovers\u00a0either, but the pulp paperbacks. There are some people who truly enjoy mighty\u00a0tomes. Some of my favorite books are Ana Karenina and Gone with the Wind, as\u00a0well as a good mix of non-fiction and philosophy. I can reread Soren Kierkegaard\u00a0any night of the week. But who am I to discourage someone who only wants to read\u00a050 Shades of Grey and Twilight?<\/p>\n

I agree that teens and children should be challenged to read books that are\u00a0beautiful, evocative, and profound. That is why there is a required reading\u00a0curriculum for school children. This is where I disagree with Graham the most:\u00a0so what if adults want to read escapist books? They are already done with\u00a0school. They are literate enough to read. Maybe after working 40 hours a week,\u00a0dealing with kids, paying their bills, and dealing with all of the woes of being an adult\u00a0they just want to remember how great it was to be a teen. Everything is new and\u00a0exciting. You haven\u2019t quite been beaten down by life yet.<\/p>\n

Since I began working with teens, I have read a lot more YA than I ever thought I\u00a0would. I do not like every single title and, just like adult books, some are awful. It\u00a0is true that sometimes I get burnt out on living in the world of teenagers and I just\u00a0need to read a book with sex, violence, and darker themes. When this happens, I\u00a0just choose to read something else. Not every television show is Mad Men and not\u00a0every book is Faulkner. Being a librarian is advocating for the reader, whether they\u00a0are 5 or 92, without judgment, and to make sure that they just keep on reading.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Amelia Zavala Vander Heide, Head Editor,\u00a0INALJ NYC If it\u2019s Not Pleasurable, Don\u2019t Read It: Being a Reader\u2019s Advocate I was recently approached by a teen with an unusual question: \u201cHow do you\u00a0get through Faulkner?\u201d At first I was taken aback. How do you answer such a\u00a0question? Secondly, having been a History major, I had…<\/p>\n

Read more \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":56960,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[145],"tags":[3917,5910,69,3592,3655,6309,6310,5405,5195],"class_list":["post-74703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","tag-advocate","tag-amelia-zavala-vander-heide","tag-article","tag-blog","tag-inalj-nyc","tag-readers-advocate","tag-readers","tag-reading","tag-right-to-read"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/amelia_vanderheide.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1WoMK-jqT","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=74703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74703\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/56960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=74703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=74703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=74703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}