Chapter 6
The rights of a reader (W6.1)
In a highly entertaining and quirky book, the French writer Daniel Pennac (2006) lists ten rights of a reader. In the Foreword to the book, which he illustrated, Quentin Blake points out that when the book was first published in French (1992) ‘… most of us thought something like that already, didn’t we?’ But he continues by looking the rights of a reader in the current context of testing and narrowed arts curricula:
…we are now in an era of tests and targets. There is nothing wrong with accountability; properly understood, we need it. What is disturbing is the withering effect of its demands when they are not properly understood.
(Blake in Pennac, 2006: 7)
Pennac explains his thinking about the ten rights, some of which may seem controversial.
The right not to read
On the face of it, this sounds contradictory to what teachers try to do: that is, encourage children to read. But Pennac argues:
… Most readers exercise the right not to read on a daily basis. Given the choice between a good book and a bad TV film, the latter wins out more often than we care to admit. Nor do we read all the time… What our duty as educators really amounts to is teaching children to read by introducing them to the world of literature, and providing them with the means to judge freely whether they feel a need for books or not.
(Pennac, 2006: 149 and 151)
The right to skip
Writing about his own experience of skipping large passages of War and Peace when he was young so that he could concentrate on the love story, Pennac argues that skipping is something all children should be encouraged to do, but that the reader should do the skipping, rather than being given simplified summaries ‘mutilated, stunted, mummified, rewritten in some kind of bare-bones language thought to be for young people’ (ibid.: 155).
The right not to finish a book
Pennac suggests that there are many reasons for not wanting to finish a book and that it is a matter of personal choice or taste, an idea he admits is controversial, but that it can lead readers to draw up their own lists of what they do and do not like – and give reasons for their preferences.
The right to read it again
This is a recognisable pleasure, although in schools, it may not often be encouraged. It is worth considering this right as part of routine classroom reading provision:
… we have the right to read a book again just for the sake of it, for the pleasure of experiencing it all over again, the joy of being reunited with it, to test how close to it we really were…. To be enchanted by something that never changes, and to find fresh wonders every time.
(ibid.: 159)
The right to read anything
Pennac asserts that there are ‘good and bad novels’. This in itself, as a value judgement about reading may seem to run counter to his view that readers have the right to read anything. It is worth considering whether you agree with his view that the bad ones are ‘a literature of quick fixes and cheap thrills cast in a mould and trying to make us fit that mould’ (ibid.: 160). But that one day, without being aware of how it has happened: ‘we want to keep company with good books. We seek out writers and writing styles. We don’t just want friends to play with any more, we’re looking for life companions’ (ibid.: 162).
The right to mistake a book for real life (a textually transmitted disease)
Using this play on words, Pennac suggests that readers may become so immersed in the world of the book that they cannot distinguish between that and the real world:
There’s a kind of reading that is all about the instant and total gratification of the senses. Your imagination swells, nerves quiver, heart races, you get an adrenaline rush, you identify with anything and everything, as your brain momentarily loses the ability to distinguish between the world of novel and reality.
For all of us, this is our first reading state.
Divine.
But it can be mildly alarming for the adult observer who, on seeing the impressionable young readers devouring trash, hurries to wave a ‘good book’ under their nose…
(ibid.: 163)
The right to read anywhere
Pennac tells an anecdote of a soldier who regularly volunteers to clean the latrines:
The hours go by. Perhaps he has got lost? They’ve almost forgotten about him. They do forget him. But he re-appears at the end of the morning, clicking his heels to report to the company warrant officer, ‘Latrines spotless, sir.’…. The soldier salutes him, turns on his heels and withdraws, taking his secret with him.
(ibid.: 165-6)
His secret was the complete works of a classic author. In exchange for 15 minutes’ cleaning, he spent a morning locked in the lavatory reading. As part of considering your own reading experiences, you may want to recall times and places you have found to hide away to be able to continue reading.
The right to dip in
Pennac sees it as a right to be able to grab a book off a shelf and dip in to it, even for a very short time, although he acknowledges that although some books lend themselves more readily to dipping, it’s worth trying with all favourite books.
The right to read out loud
There can be disputes about whether children should be required to read aloud to the whole class, but this was not what Pennac envisaged. For him, the idea is to feel the words as they enter the ears, rather than the eyes:
Me: “Did your parents read out loud to you when you were a little girl?”
Her: “Never. My father travelled a lot and my mother was much too busy.”
Me: “So how come you like reading out loud?”
Her: “School.”
Delighted that someone’s got something positive to say about school, I burst out: “A-ha! You see!”
Her: “it’s not what you’re thinking. School banned us from reading out loud. They made us read silently, even then. Direct from the eye to the brain was the theory… with a comprehension test every ten lines.”
(ibid.: 169)
Pennac describes the act of reading out loud as laying oneself open. But if someone reads with the author and the audience in mind ‘then the book will open wide’ (ibid.: 173).
The right to be quiet
Many classrooms try to create the conditions for quiet reading, but Pennac takes the idea further, suggesting that not only should young readers have the chance to read silently but that they also have the right not to be questioned about what they have been reading. This may seem controversial in terms of ‘reading comprehension’ and assessing how much children have understood, but there may be other times when it is more appropriate just to encourage children to enjoy the experience of reading for a reasonable amount of time on their own without having to explain or justify their reading. Pennac explains:
We live in groups because we’re sociable, but we read because we know we’re alone. Reading offers a kind of companionship that rakes no-one’s place, but that no-one can replace either… The rare adults who gave me the gift of reading have always stepped back and refrained from asking what I understood. And of course I talked to those people about what I’d read.
(ibid.: 174)
Reference
Pennac, D. trans. Sarah Adams, Illustrated Quentin Blake (2006) The Rights of a Reader. London: Walker Books.
A poster by Quentin Blake can be downloaded from: Visit (accessed 30 April 2017).