Background of the Study
Orientalism, a brilliant investigation of European attitudes towards Arabs and Asians, Nodelman is astonished by how often they suggest parallel insights into the most
common assumptions about children and children’s literature in the sense that what it
is called as “the Orient” has little to do with the actual conditions in the East. In similar relation between adults and children, Nodelman sees what it is called as
“Children” is more significantly the adults’ invention that has had a powerful influence of how adults have not only thought about but also acted upon children.
Child psychology and children’s literature can be discussed and analyzed as the corporate institution for dealing with childhood-dealing with it by making
statements about it, authorizing views of it, describing it, by teaching it, settling it, ruling over it; in short, Child psychology and children’s literature as an adult
style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the childhood
10
. As well as seeing the object as inferior and incapable of difficult topics,
Childre n’s Literature is then adult-centered that it is in adults’ hands the decision to
determine which books children can read and which cannot with values they approve. Sarumpaet sees so often books with adults as the center offer problems of shackling
and con quering children’s characters in their books.
Writing for children is both about exploring and filling them with adults’ interest. Guiding them from the other side means educating children to gain
civilization maturity under adults who own the power to define who they are. Then, how child characters are treated? Where are they placed in the
Postcolonial theory? They are everywhere because they are the group which is actually investigated, explained, explored, and exploited by adults, the
colonizers who need an object: the other
11
.
10
Perry Nodelman, “The Other: Orientalism, Colonialism, and Children’s Literature.”
Children’s Literature Association Quarterly 17.1 1992: 29 –35
11
Riris K. Toha Sarumpaet, Pedoman Penelitian Sastra Anak Jakarta: Yayasan Pustaka Obor, 2014 112.
With such views, silencing occurs as the impact of how adults as the definition givers of ‘childhood’ and therefore ‘Children’s Literature’ which perpetuates controls
over children’s rights to read or not to read in their books. Frequently, they meet adults’ advantages: the feeling of security by preventing children from the exposures
of difficult topics of sexuality or painful life and the easier tasks as well as the maintenance of power relation
by displaying only ‘good’ and submissive characters instead of the bad or rebellious ones.
In different perspective, Heins reported the unchecked arguments to say children as uncorrupted, asexual, and psychologically vulnerable have also been the
causes
12
. In her sight through histo ry, children’s innocence is in fact a recent
historical phenomenon and culturally invented instead of being naturally inherent. It is not until 17
th
century that children have been considered asexual. It is also only in the modern era childhood has been seen as peculiarly vulnerable state that their life
and freedom is deprived from those ‘troublesome’ themes
13
. Unfortunately, as these all unquestioned arguments are massively believed to
be applicable to all children, children are then seen as a group of people with general similarities not differing each other. They are a general class without specificities in
gender, race, cultural background, or abilities. As a result, the assumptions imply that individual children are generalized to be more like each other than to be individual.
This also means that when children are understood in the term of limitation, they are
12
Marjorie Heins, Not in Front of the Children:“ Indecency,” Censorship, and the Innocence of Youth. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2007 20.
13
See Ariés in Heins, 8.
all seen as less knowledgeable, less resistance, and less resilient in stereotypical fashion.
Nodelman continues that the most significant effect that common assumptions about childhood has
on children’s reading is to deprive children of access to books
14
. Many adults are far more interested in determining what children should not read than
what and how they should. By using a harmless-sound name of book selection, adults carelessly perform silencing and censorship on
children’s books. Blume herself likely realizes that she prevents herself from being a pro-censorship author that she
was named by the American Library Association as the second-most censored author
15
. Yet, as the spokeswoman in the National Coalition against Censorship in America she views:
I believe censorship grows out of fear, and because fears is contagious, some parents are easily swayed…Book banning satisfies their need to feel in control
of their children’s lives. This fear often disguised as moral outrage. They want to believe that if children do not read about it, their children won’t know about
it, it won’t happen
16
. However, the fact that Blume has become significant writer because she has
achieved her fame as a writer from children who became her readers and fans must prove something significant about pleasures for reading honest stories with kinds of
existed-yet-silenced problems of childhood. Blume’s works have collectively been
sold more than 70 million copies. Fourteen of her books are on the Publisher’s Weekly Lists of the top-350 all-
the time bestselling children’s paperbacks. She also won more than 90 awards and her books have been translated into 26 different
14
Nodelman, The Pleasures 85.
15
Ludwig, et al., 76.
16
Ludwig, et al., 76.
languages.
17
Even after more than 30 years of publication, some of her books still endure today
18
. As a matter of fact, with the spirit of liberating young readers, the appearance
of the so-called tab oo matters in Blume’s novels also provides positive impacts as a
therapeutic reading for the readers. An expert like Ethen promotes the approach of bibliotherapy as the beneficial integral relationship between the dynamics of the
personality and the nature of vicarious experience
19
. This can be seen from the valuabl
e representation of Blume’s appreciative and adoring fan base that can be seen from her book Letters to Judy: What Your Kids Wish They Could Tell You 1986 as a
compilation of letters from readers of all ages thanking her for addressing difficult issues. Here is one of the letter examples
Dear Judy, My Mom never talks about the things young girls think most about. She
doesn’t know how I feel. I don’t know where I stand in the world. I don’t know who I
am. That’s why I read. To find myself. Elizabeth, age 13
20
Blume’s controversy since 1970 for being the most banned then becomes the starting point of this research.
The reaction of 70s’ toward the obscenity and difficult knowledge in children’s books is as great as what it is in Indonesia where this
research is conducted. Moral panic has become the respond of parents and educators when ‘inappropriate’ topics are discussed in media and printed materials. For
17
Ludwig, et al., 18-19.
18
Ludwig, et al., 21.
19
Ethen Newell, “At the North End of Pooh: A Study of Bibliotherapy.” Elementary English 34.1 1957: 24.
20
Judy Blume, Letters to Judy: What Your Kids Wish They Could Tell You New York: G. P. Putman’s Sons, 1986 73.
example, one of second grade worksheets LKS created a great furore as parents complain to find a short story entitled Bang Maman dari Kali Pasir mentioning about
a mistress
21
. The labels have been all the same. These are always about inappropriate iss
ue for kids, the psychological effects to children’s future life, and the belief that children are innocent on the issue.
Most of experts of children’s literature in Indonesia like Winarni 2014, Nurgiyantoro 2013, and even Sarumpaet
1976 exclusively distinguish children’s literature from adults’ by presenting the fixed characteristics about literature for
young readers to eliminate prohibited issues sex, love and eroticism, revenge, negative feeling, evil, death. When they have to exist, the moral values need to be
simplified and they end with happy ending. Children’s stories also have to be short and to the point, to be dynamic, and to have obvious cause and effect. They posses
clear one-dimensional characterizations which emphasize the bad and the good with black-and-
white personalities. Children’s fictions then have to be informative and beneficial for children’s development, knowledge, and specific skills
22
. This lead the children’s literature authors silence the out-of-category issues even before they write
the stories. Such discourse brings this research to consider the fact that, through Judy
Blume’s novels, there are pleasures behind voicing the silenced is indeed important to observe. In addition, the
novels’ practical uses as healing stories also necessary to
21
Ratih Prahesti Sudarsono,“Tarik Buku Bang Maman dan Istri Simpanan” 12 Apr. 2012. Edukasi. Kompas.com.Website. 26 Mar. 2014.
http:edukasi.kompas.comread2012041213025135Tarik.Buku.Bang.Maman.dan.Istri.S impanan.
22
Winarni, Retno. Kajian Sastra Anak. Yogyakarta: Graha Ilmu, 2014 4.
analyze. By implementing perspectives grounded on the poststructuralist and postcolonial point of views
which sees the pleasures in Children’s Literature as the pleasures of all literature, this research tries to relate
the pleasures found in Blume’s selected novels to the silenced issues which are voiced through the texts. This
research also applies the approach of bibliotherapy in order to see the therapeutic uses of literature implied in her novels to show kinds of healings and helps
Blume’s novels can offer to young readers.