Every book is different for every reader

I received two let­ters from two of my young read­ers today. They came from very dif­fer­ent places in the coun­try. Both kids, how­ev­er, had read my Crispin books. Both told me how much they enjoyed them. 

One of the young read­ers stressed how much he was tak­en by the char­ac­ter Troth. He let me know that by read­ing about her in the books, he found a new under­stand­ing of his sister’s life and her “dis­abil­i­ty.” It helped him under­stand and respect her a great deal more than he had in the past. 

The sec­ond let­ter informed me how much Crispin’s courage, as depict­ed in the books, meant to her. She let me know that his courage gave her courage to deal with the prob­lems she faced in her life—problems which were not artic­u­lat­ed in the letter. 

Though these were the same books, these two dif­fer­ent read­ers came away with two very dif­fer­ent kinds of mean­ing and expe­ri­ence. It is a reminder that every book means some­thing dif­fer­ent to every read­er. Too often, we are giv­en the idea that a book means some­thing, some­thing in par­tic­u­lar. How­ev­er, the won­der of books—of stories—is that they mean infi­nite things to as many read­ers as there are who read them.