SCHOOL LIBRARIES WORLDWIDE

Volume 9, Number 1, January 2003

Theme: Reading in the Age of Harry Potter

Risk, Safety, and Control in Young People's Reading Experiences
Margaret Mackey
Young people read for many reasons. It is a great paradox that reading can provide a safe environment for experimenting with moral and psychological risk. Alternatively, reading may provide a safe haven in a world of real-life risk. Either way, the reader needs to feel a sense of control over his or her reading matter. Adults who work with young people need to be clear about the importance of this control, and to realize that by attempting to wrest that control away from the young reader, they may wind up devaluing the power of reading in that person's eyes.

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Last updated 5 December 2008 (KSB)