Edited by Scott Westerfeld - Teen Libris

The Dangerous Worlds of Pullman’s His Dark Materials 27
work-because it is so good and compelling-might exert undue influence
over the minds and hearts of children and teens.
Rupert Kaye describes HDM as “a honeyed trap,” and suggests that it
be removed from every primary school in England.
I disagree.
Growing up, I was allowed to read pretty much anything I was capable
of finishing. My mother never saw danger between the covers of a
book-only opportunity. My aunt’s True Romance magazines might have
been a head-turning education to a child of eight, except that certain key
concepts soared right over my head.
For instance, I couldn’t understand why the adults in those stories
were so anxious to go to bed together. For me, bedtime brought the curtain
down on the most interesting part of the day and my goal was to put
it off as long as possible. Looking back from an adult perspective, I
assume that I cut into a different world than my aunt when I picked up
those magazines.
It’s like the time in fourth grade when I gave a lecture to my class on
guppy sex. My teacher’s reaction was memorable, but I didn’t understand
it until years later.
I first read the Chronicles of Narnia as a child, totally unaware of its
Christian allegorical themes. It was an exciting story, full of interesting
fantasy imagery and intelligent talking animals. The religious element
lent a rich new dimension when I re-read it later on. When I was a young
teenager, I read Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Mists of Avalon as a romantic
fantasy, only later picking up on its feminist themes and criticism of the
patriarchal church.
I don’t think I was a particularly dull child. If anything, my reading
ability outstripped my larger knowledge of the world and the subtleties
of sociopolitical and religious symbolism. There’s a chance that all those
radical ideas are festering somewhere deep inside, a suppurating wound
on the soul that will one day surface, but I doubt it.
As readers, we enter different worlds at different times in our lives. As
an adult, I read Huckleberry Finn to my eight-year-old son-not as a
searing social commentary on slavery and mid-nineteenth century society,
but as a fast-paced adventure story. He read it again in high school
to a different purpose. I would argue that the book he read in high
school was a different book-because he was a different reader. He was