I had to read a book that was highly controversial in the 1990s called Junk and initially after reading it I was outraged that something like this could be published for children! I mean the way the author glamourised heroin was terrible - How could this happen?? But as I chose to write an essay on it and I examined the book more closely with the authors intentions I soon saw that actually he was allowing children to make up their own minds about what the character did and gave them the opportunity to explore the situation rather than preaching down to them. I am sure that if I had read this book as a teenager I might have ultimate respect for him for doing so, but as I am a mother of a daughter roughly the age of his solipsistic character, I was fearful that something like this could happen so easily. It certainly made me think and remember that young people (just because they can act a bit dumb some of the time) are actually entirely capable of contextualising and analysing information for themselves.
I have just finished reading Treasure Island and surprisingly I have enjoyed it more and more as I have read this book. Thank goodness for literature courses because otherwise I wouldn't have persevered with half as many of them and been introduced to others - What am I going to do when I finish in the summer? Join a book group? Start a book group? Read everything I can get my hand on? Hmmm well I will have to see. I have the task of writing my last ever assignment for my degree, so I had better get on with it I suppose!
Till the next time,
