We live in a land of stories…

Coming into this semester as a senior bound for law school, I had resigned myself to the lack of choice that comes with finally fulfilling each requirement needed for graduation. Then, as I was scrolling through the selections for my English electives, I saw, like a light in the darkness, that a class with Dr. Kim Jaxon was being offered, was open, and fit into my schedule. I knew in that moment that at least in one class, I would have some choice.

Donalyn Miller discusses the importance of choice in the second chapter of her book Reading in the Wild. While her references are mostly to children in elementary or middle school, the idea of having a say in what you do resonates with all of us. One of the most interesting things that is discussed is the idea of a “preview stack” that is given to students as a selection of recommended books from which they may choose. Kim embraces that idea when giving book assignments; as a class, we were given a list of books in each category we will be focusing on this semester, and from that list, we could choose the book in that category that most interested us.

Currently, we are only on our first book selection, and I have to say, I am pleased with my choice. The genre in which we are reading is young adult series books, and I am thoroughly engrossed in Chris Colfer’s series The Land of Stories. The two main characters, Alex and Connor, are twelve year old twins who are polar opposites in the academic world. Alex, the young girl, excels academically and has a good rapport with her teachers, but is seen as obnoxiously overzealous by her classmates. Her brother Connor is just as smart, but is seen as the class clown, and he doesn’t do well on tests. They have been through a rough time in their family after the loss of their father, and despite the school making concessions and their mother working long hours, they have become accustomed to spending long amounts of time alone.

Enter the twins’ grandmother, and her wonderful collection of fairy tales entitled The Land of Stories. Now, while the book has been the twins’ favorite for a long time, they always knew it was their grandmother’s book; on their twelfth birthday however, they were gifted this special book, and from that point on, their lives are changed forever. As one can assume from the title, the twins are thrust into a magical world where the stories they grew up hearing were real, and the lives of the characters within them continued on after the happily ever after was written.

This was particularly compelling to me, as I have been studying fairy tales and the many versions, since my senior year in high school. I knew that there was more to the tales people grow up hearing than the saccharine and mellowed out versions that Disney serves us once every few years. For me, this was the ideal book, not only to introduce audiences to the fact that there is more than one version to every story, but to give my younger self a visit into the land where all of these amazing things have happened. I would have devoured this series in less than a week, probably at least one book per day, when I was younger, hungry to know what happens when someone from the modern world falls into a land where anything is possible, and where they must rely on themselves and their knowledge to get by, mostly without the aid of adults.

Now, this isn’t to say that there aren’t adults in this story. There are. However, the adults in the spotlight in the real world have definitively real stories. The twins’ mother works double shifts nearly every day to get out from under the debt her husband’s unexpected death caused, and this causes her to miss her children’s birthday. The grandmother lived her life to raise her children, and now is taking time to help needy children around the globe, and to live her life as she sees fit now that she has fewer obligations. The teacher is irritated with some of her students’ unwillingness to learn, but feels that she is responsible for giving others a stable environment at school. Each adult faces the dilemma of probably wanting a more fairy tale life, but having to recognize the realities of living in a world which is unfair to so many.

The children themselves are also written as very real characters. They do not seek out strange circumstances, they seek out scientific reasons to the otherworldly things that happen to them, and they have seen real hardships in their short lives. However, they also contain vast amounts of wonder, as I believe all children should. They are presented with an unprecedented situation, and not only face it with fear, but with awe. This is what a story about children should be; characters should be portrayed as dynamic and capable of adult reasoning, without being displayed as only innocent and helpless.

Having the ability to read a book that I truly enjoy is something that, as a college student, I don’t often have. In lower schools, there is slightly more leniency in regards to choice, but even then, there are some teachers who force certain books on their students. When I was in the lower grades, I was constantly getting in trouble for finishing the required reading “too early” (reading ahead is BAD) and reading my “outside reading” during class because I had no interest in the text we were being forced to read. Even if my book was in the same genre and had the same lesson, I was seen as a bad student for not staying on track with the class. Often times, these books were so far below my reading level that they held no education for me, whereas my choice had similar educational value, but also challenged me. With Kim’s choice to give us a variety of options, as Donalyn Miller suggests, we have the opportunity to take charge of our own education, and our own enjoyment.