1. Reading Autobiography
Miriam Larson
LIS404AG
February 2, 2012
My reading autobiography is an adventurer’s tale with a happily-ever-after
ending. The protagonist – me – rides confidently towards obstacles, she finds positive
encouragement along the way, and she arrives triumphant and ready for more adventures.
I might not have had such a smooth ride without the encouragement and fair-weather
conditions that set me up for success. As I reflect on the memories I have of learning to
read, becoming a fluent reader, and becoming a critical reader, I think it is important to
acknowledge these conditions that helped me develop a positive relationship to reading.
In acknowledging these conditions, my intention is to remember that not everyone has
such smooth sailing. And as a librarian I want to recognize that young people have
diverse experiences with reading. I can only hope to build positive relationships with
young people such as myself who are navigating the choppy waters of childhood and
young adulthood.
I have only vague memories of learning to read. I remember the concentration I
directed at reading, the sense of accomplishment I felt as I got better, and the sense of
independence as I joined the ranks of readers. I was in good reading company. My family
was quiet, both my parents are university professors, and our evening activities almost
always included reading time. We had a cozy living room with a big couch, two reading
lamps, one on each side of the couch, and several bookshelves full of books. Our yearly
trips to visit family in Minnesota were also good times to engross myself in books, and
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2. fortunately I did not get carsick.
My memories of reading take off when I was fluent enough not to worry about the
mechanics. This was when I was in second, or perhaps, third grade. Reading fluently
made it possible for my imagination to run wild and my memory of reading is filled with
images that are vivid and wondrous. Some of the most graphically rich images I have are
of reading adventure books: The Hobbit, Daughter of the Mountains, Catwings, Dr
Doolittle, The Littles. I still have snapshot images of each of these books in my head,
although I could tell you little about the plot or characters.
A moment that was perhaps the defining moment of my new stage of reading
fluency happened in third grade while I was reading The Lion, the Witch and the
Wardrobe. It was silent reading time and I sat engrossed in the adventures and the
fantasyland beyond the wardrobe. I have clear snapshots of imagination from this book. I
remember feeling the cold of the winter and imagining the snowy banks along a stream
where the two main characters find themselves. I remember their encounters with the
fawn and I can feel that dreadful sense of evil that the witch brought with her when she
encountered the children. I was so engrossed in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
that I did not notice the class lining up to go out to recess. Finally the teacher called my
name and I looked up with a start. I was jolted out of the story and surprised that I had
been totally oblivious to what was going on around me. I was delighted and quite proud.
It was an awesome experience to be so absorbed by a book that I would tune out what
was going on around me and almost literally enter a different world.
While some of my memories are distinctly visual, I also had intensely emotional
experiences with books. Several books stand out in my memory when I think about the
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3. first books that emotionally gripped me. I remember crying while I read about living with
diabetes (Sugar Isn’t Everything) and dealing with the sickness of a loved one (Canada
Geese Quilt). Although these were sad books, I was delighted that I could experience all
sorts of different events through books. I really felt that I could learn from different
characters’ mistakes, sorrows, and trials and be inspired by their discoveries and deeds.
So I began to seek this experience of closely identifying with characters.
Unsurprisingly, in late elementary school and into middle school I became more
attached to reading as a search for identity. I already identified as a reader of books; I was
from a family of readers and my friends all read a lot. That said I did not share reading
interests very often with my closest friends. In fourth grade a group of my friends got
really into reading the Babysitters’ Club books and even formed a friend club for avid
readers that required members to have read a certain number of Babysitters’ Club books.
It was a testament to my friends’ inclusiveness that I was allowed to be in the club even
though I never read the requisite number of books. But it also made me aware that
pleasure reading was an independent endeavor for me.
In fact, my coping mechanism in middle school was to try to weather the social
turmoil of puberty by avoiding social conflicts as much as possible. I was not anti-social,
I just tried to avoid sticking my neck out or participating in any competition for
recognition in my peer social hierarchy. Instead I favored activities with peers that were
structured and I put my mind to developing my skills in things like music, soccer and
school. And I also spent a lot of time reading.
My pleasure-reading habits reflected my avoidance tactic. I stumbled on fantasy,
and what I like to call “lady knight fantasy” in particular, thanks to my sixth grade
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4. English teacher. I loved the fantasy genre and found comfort in stories that often
followed a plot that went something like this: uniquely talented young girl sets out on her
own to confront evil in the adult world. This suited me well since I wanted to be talented,
I was trying to avoid social conflict among my peers, and the grandiose missions of these
heroines intrigued me.
Fantasy was also (usually) a safe way to be introduced to relationships and
sexuality. I could identify with the women characters because they were independent and
self-motivated. They were often skeptical of romance but stumbled upon it anyways; this
was a convenient storyline for me who was also skeptical of romance but hoped that it
would fall into my lap someday. And the relationships often ended in some sort of
reassuring happily-ever-after conclusion.
There were some exceptions to the safe romance story and I was not, perhaps, as
prepared as I might have been to deal with some of the sex scenes I read about in middle
school. Clan of the Cave Bears is the first book in which I remember reading about sex
and rape described in a fair amount of detail. Reading detailed descriptions of sex was an
intense experience for me given that I had not explored my own sexuality or had many
conversations with friends or mentors about it. While the main character in the Clan of
the Cave Bear series later finds partners who teach her that sex can be safe and loving, I
was left feeling very distrustful of sexuality and of male entitlement to sex.
As I reflect on this experience, I am aware of how isolated reading experiences
can be. I was a fairly naïve reader, I think, and stumbling on descriptions of sex and
violence was intense and sometimes scary. While I had supportive adults around me, I
still did not talk to them about what I read in Clan of the Cave Bear. It is easy to imagine
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5. how young people might stumble upon descriptions of sex or violence that they are not
prepared to deal with and similarly feel unable to ask questions or talk about their reading
experience. Additionally, young people that have had traumatic life experiences may find
passages like the rape scene in Clan of the Cave Bear triggering in potentially damaging
and hurtful ways. Reflecting on this experience makes me cognizant that, as an aspiring
teacher-librarian, it is important to make space for open conversations about sex and
violence. Whether this is in the library, with individual students, or in health classes, it
seems like librarians have a stake in trying to make young people’s reading experiences
empowering and safe as much as possible.
Aside from pleasure reading, books I had to read for school taught me to read for
information and literature analysis. I started my freshman year of high school having
recently returned from a six-month sabbatical with my family in India. The trip gave me a
broader interest in local and global social issues. In books I read for English class, I found
answers and new questions about challenging social issues like poverty, violence and
racism. In this case, my teachers and peers provided context and helped me process
realistic fiction that did not idealize characters or end happily ever after. Some of my
favorites were Grapes of Wrath, Poisonwood Bible, Native Son, and Their Eyes Were
Watching God. With realistic fiction, I learned to distance myself from the characters and
events in order to protect myself, although I continued to be an emotional and empathetic
reader.
In college I became an increasingly critical reader for several reasons. First of all,
my classes taught me to analyze the historical and social context of written work.
Secondly, I had to do a lot of writing and my classes in critical race theory encouraged
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6. me to write about my own positionality. Finally, the explosion of the Internet during my
college years required me to be increasingly attentive to the credibility of online sources.
This critical approach to reading even reached back to the lady knight fantasy I loved as a
young adult. I remember having a realization on a walk with my mother that the fantasy I
was so attached to as a teenager was not as liberationist as I had previously believed.
What exactly was so compelling about a mediaeval setting in which individual females
rebelled against gender norms? It seemed to me that my yougner self’s absorption with
these books responded to the appeal of an individualistic heroine narrative. However,
new feminist consciousness made me aware of the limited notion of feminism that these
books portrayed. While the individualistic heroine narrative communicates a compelling
personal struggle in a very black-and-white context, it is far from the complex reality of
feminist movements faced with an institutionalized system of sexist oppression. What I
was doing was identifying how the experience of reading fiction was compelling and how
it differed from reality.
Interestingly, my meta-analysis of fantasy in college has not turned me off from
reading fantasy nor has it inspired me to love non-fiction and realistic fiction more.
Starting in college and continuing to the present day, I have a love-hate relationship with
realistic fiction and non-fiction. The quantity of information available as a result of the
Internet has instilled in me a simultaneous sense of wonder in the quantity of accessible
information as well as a constant feeling of being overwhelmed. Take for example my
news-reading habits. I think it is useful and important to read the news on a regular basis.
And when I take time to read the news, I often find it satisfying, particularly when I have
the time to follow several Internet links to different perspectives on an issue. However, I
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7. am not in the habit of reading news because I am easily turned off of reading online news
because there is so much. Several insights have allowed me to change the way I read
news. First, I have set my homepage to one news site that provides brief news updates
that I can skim before I move on to other online tasks. Second, I get my news in other
formats. I appreciate listening to the radio or news podcasts because, as a full time
student, I spend a lot of time on the computer. When I have the option to, I prefer to take
a break from reading off of a screen.
Reflecting on My Reading Patterns
This narrative of my experiences with reading illustrates places me squarely in the
camp of avid young readers who look to understand and guide identity development. My
experience relied on the fact that I came from a family of readers who similarly looked to
books as trustworthy sources of information. I had role models who read, quiet time and
space to read. Although I did not necessarily share pleasure-reading interests with friends,
I did have friends who identified as readers. Many young people do not have this
experience. Many young people grow up in homes that have a television on all the time.
Some young people face ridicule from friends and peers for reading too much. And
others may find that people that look or act like them are not represented in books. These
experiences will shape their reading habits in a different way.
My teen years were particularly pivotal in my reading history because it was the
most intense period of identity development in my life. I used books as a guide for my
identity development and I was most engrossed by books in which I identified strongly
with the character. I felt most comfortable with books where the main character was the
same gender as me. And part of the reason I was drawn to fantasy books with female
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8. heroines was because I came to know what to expect both from the characters and from
the plot. While the kind of fiction I sought will be different for others, I imagine that
many teens look to books, and particularly pleasure-reading, to provide a similar sense of
comfort and companionship.
As a librarian, I am excited to help connect teens with books that will help support
them to become the people that they want to become. For me, I felt that I could change
myself if I read enough. Books supported me through my teenage years. I have no
illusions that books can replace supportive real-life relationships, but I do think they are a
building block that can support teens through one of the most challenging periods of life.
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