Posted by Beck on March 26, 1999 at 07:57:08:
In Reply to: Re: THE ANSWER IS... posted by Anne LeVeque on March 23, 1999 at 17:32:06:
I read LOTF when I was ten and it resonated with me because it was the only text I had ever read that articulated the kind of cruelty that children experience and inflict on each other all the time. I felt a mixture of guilt and responsibility because I recognised my own fence-sitting when it came to other kids being bullied, and I no longer ignored the tormenting of other kids after reading it.
I also read Henry Miller around age ten (I had the run of all the bookshelves in the house.) My opinion then was that I had noidea what it was about but I quite liked the language and it was fun to read the swearing, but I didn't get why he didn't like women. My opinion is much the same now, without the excitement of swearing and with some understanding of Miller's intentions, and some feminist insight. I am completely anti censoring kids' reading. It censors their maturing, and curbs the sense of discovery that reading all sorts of books is all about. Ignorance is criminal.