It was the heading for the e-mail. "I don't like your book."

The text repeated the sentiment. It said with the same directness and simplicity, "I don't like your book."

The message was "sent from awesome."

Since I have a lot of books out there, my response was as simple and direct as the incoming e-mail. I wrote back and asked which book Awesome was referring to and why he didn't like it. (Am I right to assume that, almost inevitably, Awesome is a he?)

Awesome responded. The book he referred to, it turned out, was On My Honor. No surprise there. Sometimes young readers are quite unprepared for such a sad story, one that doesn't resolve all the problems it sets up, not to mention a story in which a main character— a young one— dies.  

I wrote back sympathetically.

Dear Awesome,

It is certainly your right not to like sad books. I don't like stories that seem to me to be too loaded with sadness, and everyone has a different idea of what "too loaded" means. But for me, sadness in the right proportions stretches me, helps me understand other people— and myself— better, and sometimes even gives me a chance to cry a bit and to feel a whole lot better afterward.

I hope you find lots of books that you do like. Books are such a great way to live beyond our own experience.

Fondly,

Marion Dane Bauer

Awesome's next e-mail presented a different challenge. He asked,

 R u the real one speaking to my or is it your company

Sent from awesome

I assured him that I was the real one speaking and that ended our exchange.

Because my books— especially On My Honor— are frequently used for classroom reading, I often get letters in class-sized packets. Receiving stray e-mails is something new and is, frankly, a lot more fun.

Usually teacher-assigned letters all sound pretty much the same. They loved my book, whichever one it was. It was the best book they'd ever read. And then they ask their obligatory questions.

There is nothing wrong with such letters, beyond being a bit boring, boring for the kids to write, boring for me to read. (One of my publishers once sent me, accidentally, a packet of letters meant for Judy Blume, and except for the fact that the title mentioned in the letters wasn't one of mine, I never would have noticed the difference. They all said pretty much the same thing, I/she is their favorite author, the book— fill in the blank— is their favorite book.)

When a child actually has the courage to say, "I don't like this!" I'm delighted. When he can say it even in the context of a school assignment, I cheer. I am reminded of a moment, fresh out of graduate school, when another just-out-of-college English major said to me, "I'm not in school any longer. I don't have to like The Fairie Queene." And I cheered. I was at the time very intently reading books specifically not included in my English department's curriculum, writers such as C.S. Lewis and John Steinbeck.

I was a high school English teacher once, so long ago that it feels like something out of a different lifetime. And I discovered that what I most wanted to accomplish in teaching literature was the hardest goal to achieve. I wanted my students to love to read and to return to doing it again and again and again.

Part of learning to love to read is having the freedom and the insight to be able to say, "I don't like this," and then, of course, to say why.

I do hope Awesome goes on to find books that he loves, and I'm glad he had the courage to speak up to an authority so remote that it seemed to him that he must surely be talking to a whole company.

But I also hope he doesn't lose the discrimination needed to decide that some books, however honored, are not to his liking.

Having the courage to decide that and to say it to whatever powers may be is truly awesome!

[A post script. I just received another message from Awesome. It said, I love your other books]