The Rights of the Reader [Illustrated] [Paperback]

Daniel Pennac's book-length essay "Comme un roman" was previously translated into English as "Reads Like A Novel" in the early 1990s; for whatever reason, Walker Books, the behemoth of children's book publishers in the English-speaking world, has commissioned a new version. Sarah Adams's translation has the less literal title of "The Rights of the Reader", but she does translate the book into a witty and conversational English. Whether this is an accurate representation of Pennac's tone I don't know, not having read the original, but it certainly makes for a book that you want to keep reading.

Part of Pennac's basic argument is that we put too much pressure on children to learn to read. They will learn to read at their own pace, he says, unless we try to force that pace, in which case it will take them longer, because they will resent us. In any case, reading should be a pleasure, not something you force yourself to do in order to earn the right to watch TV.

This may sound like a dry book meant for parents and teachers, but in fact it's a witty and well-observed story about all of us who were once innocent or not-so-innocent readers and who are now older, supposedly wiser and possibly hoping that our kids, if we have any, are going to be interested in books too. What Pennac is saying cuts to the heart of modern education: we need to stop thinking about targets, and more about empty time. Boredom, he says, is essential to developing the imagination. If our kids are never bored, if their every moment is filled with some sort of supposedly fun/educational activity, if they are never left at a loss, if they always have to be improving themselves, then they will never be able to develop imaginatively; they will never learn to populate their solitudes.

There is something profoundly wise and profoundly subversive about this argument; it's subversive in that it genuinely challenges many of the assumptions built into the educational systems not only of France but also of the UK, Ireland, the USA and for all I know many other places. The system places enormous pressure on parents and teachers to ensure that the children are going to achieve, achieve, achieve. What it doesn't do is let the children alone to be themselves for a bit. It is assumed that if they are left alone, they will turn to the terrible soma of TV (or the internet) and become passive consumers. Pennac has good fun with the spectacle of the desperately bored teenager upstairs ploughing through Madame Bovary, while downstairs the parents and their dinner guests witter on about how terrible TV is (and how much better it used to be).

This is, incidentally, one of the best books about the pleasure of reading ever written. In a genre that includes Marcel Proust's "Against Sainte-Beuve" and Milan Kundera's "Immortality", that's some heavy competition, but Pennac is more focused than Proust (who was admittedly only revving up to writing his novel) and far more coherent and less reactionary than Kundera (whose unhelpful prescription turns out to be the same as the French educational system in general: Read More Classics, You Ignorant Philistines!)

French literature can have a reputation for pretension and humourless incomprehensibility. This is strange, when you consider that modern French literature is dominated by masters of spare lucidity like Camus, Gide and Saint-Exupery and ebullient and intricate jokers like Perec and Queneau. The knotty, opaque gurus (Sartre, Derrida etc.) are a minority in the corner. Pennac is lucid, funny and intelligent and I recommend this book to anyone who cares about reading.

THE RIGHTS OF THE READER is translated from French, which Daniel Pennac wrote in 1992. Pennac was an inner-city teacher in Paris. He believes that we need to promote reading for pleasure in order to get our young ones to read.

He relates many stories from his own time spent growing up and teaching. He believes in the power of the story. He thinks that when children are asked to answer comprehension questions when learning to read, all their love of reading disappears.

I really think he is on to something here. I teach fifth grade and read aloud all the time. Since the No Child Left Behind act has become law, I haven't had as much time to read aloud as I did before. I have so many standards to teach and especially in California where they are so high, that reading aloud time has been drastically cut. I loved this book because it validated what I believe.

He also wrote ten rights of the reader:

1. The right to read. I liked this right because even though I am a reader there are times when I don't read because life has gotten to me. I remember a real sparse time after the birth of both of my kids. I didn't crack a book for about nine months.
2. The right to skip.
3. The right not to finish a book. This hit home with me, too. I always felt guilty when I didn't finish a book for a book club, but I have the right not to finish a book whenever I don't like it.
4. The right to read it again - Harry Potter, here I come!
5. The right to read anything.
6. The right to mistake a book for real life.
7. The right to read anywhere. This applies to me since I have read many times in Disneyland - and I have pictures to prove it.
8. The right to dip in.
9. The right to read out loud.
10. The right to be quiet and not discuss the book with anyone.

I enjoyed THE RIGHTS OF THE READER a lot and recommend it to all who are readers or who work with children.

Reviewed by: Marta Morrison

Though this is a short book, it took me a while to get through it. Not because it was hard work, but because I kept abandoning it (well within my rights!) for other novels, although I think Pennac would approve. Whether you are an avid reader or have fallen out with your library of late, I'm fairly certain this little essay will inspire you to tackle that heavyweight Russian masterpiece you've always been meaning to, try out a new author recommended to you by a friend, or just revisit one of your favourites.

The tone is really refreshing: light, conversational, but not over-simplistic. It easily pulls you in, and is not bogged down by too much intellectual analysis or obscure literary references. Pennac draws on his own experiences as a reader, a father and a teacher, to illustrate the joys and sorrows of reading, and how it should and shouldn't be approached. He dispells many myths about literature and reading, arguing the case for the '10 Rights of The Reader' in a very effective way. The pages are interspersed with illustrations from Quentin Blake, an artist whose drawings encapsulate a kind of jolly subversiveness and freedom of imagination, perfectly balancing the text.

This is a gem of a book that will re-affirm or renew your love of literature.