Review of Related Studies

In a different study, Manning et al. in “Questioning the Self, Questioning Others, Questioning Relationships: A Qualitative Inquiry into the Pedagogical Value of Judy Blume ” observe the responses from on-line message forums focusing on both positive and negative reactions to Blume’s novels 30 . Differing from this research and with their feminist perspectives, the major themes found to be most discussed are Blume’s novels play as learning tools and as connection, the issues of religion and sexuality, and the problems with punishment and disdain for reading her books. The analysis shows that as the learning tool, Blume’s novels do not only share sexual self-awareness. They also share the awareness of the life lesson, especially self-empowerment including self-concept and self-esteem establishing that one can feel good about themselves regardless of how they look and their intellectual level. The sexuality themes in the novels can be comforting parents, too, as they can be the learning tool to allow them exploring what their children may be facing despite to be the ice breaker of discussing sensitive topics. Playing role as connection, Blume’s novels become a channel of commonality where people can discuss or share things obtained from her books. Her books enable discussions like sexuality to enter the public realm even though it is not always to be a serious nature. Sexuality is also the other major theme for discussion among the respondents. Blume’s novels create depictions of sexuality which falls to be a part of life filled with joy. Even though some called her books as pornography, Manning et al. see that 30 Jimmie Manning, et al., “Questioning the Self, Questioning Others, Questioning Relationships: A Qualitative Inquiry int o the Pedagogical Value of Judy Blume”. MP: A Feminist Journal Online 2007: 7 –15. the works, from the feminist viewpoint, are not necessarily simply seeking for pleasure nor degrading women. The issue relate to religion is also found to be the other issue debatable in Blu me’s novels that is considered having problematic implications for children to read. Even though some parents and educators have been nervous talking about the piety of religions and how sacred it is to be presented in child characters of Blume who question faith, Manning et al. suggests that her works are largely faith-positive since it is not that the character like Margaret in Margaret wants to abandon faith, on the contrary, it is because she needs to understand about it. The fifth or the final theme discussed is about the problem with punishment and disdain in reading Blume’s works. This last theme deals with the negative responses regarding consequences and rejecting ideology. Some respondents express that Blume has crossed the lines. She enters into sacred territories which are commonly unwanted. The rejection towards ideological content of Blume’s novels indeed carries feminist understanding that the works might not be essential, but they are helpful because they provide supports and solace of the issues kids are facing without forcing to engage with such issues in the real life. Most of all, her works suggest it is normal to question things in life from sexuality, racism, to religion. In a quite similar way to the analysis of Manning et al, this research also wants to find how Blume’s novels which are problematic with their sacred issues are indeed influential in giving practical usages for her readers. The main difference is that the study of Manning et al. is conducted under Feminist viewpoints while this research applies poststructuralist and postcolonial perspective in seeing Children’s Literature especially when dealing with the power relation of adults to children and also censorship in Ch ildren’s Literature which causes Blume’s novels to be kept away from the intended readers. The other difference is that this research presents the mechanic of the initial problems why censorship. This research also presents the relation between those ‘sacred’ issues to pleasures and benefits they provide in being existed in children’s books. It is true a lot has been said about censorship and silencing in Children’s Literature. “Censorship and Children’s Literature in Britain Now, or, The Return of Abigail ” by Hunt, for example, demonstrates the problem of simplistic censorship in children’s books 31 . Taking the case on Pirani’s Abigail at the Beach 1988, Hunt claims that the prerequisites of censoring this picture book in Britain was led by the government policies, which have cut school library budgets and school library services, and the selection procedures of those powerful bookselling companies dominating the market. Hunt mentions that the censorship was done as a result of a primitive, simplistic, literalist, cause-and-effect concept of reading and common sense. This implies the simplistic relationship between text and the reader so that when the alcohol or violence is wrong, they should never appear in the books because the readers will be automatically and directly affected. As the consequence, government policy wiped out the excellent School Libraries service that individual teachers in individual schools have no freedom to select books their own; and this means a narrower selection occurred. 31 Peter Hunt, “Censorship and Children’s Literature in Britain Now, Or, The Return of Abigail.” Children’s Literature in Education 28.2 1997: 95–103. Hunt also adds that Children’s Literature has been seen as a commodity. Four complaints attacked Abigail at the Beach were found to be enough to take the publisher withdrawing the book from the market. Hunt believes that there have been plenty of books never reached the intended readers because they are censored by the buyers-adults- who put little sympathy to Children’s Literature and merely see it in term of generality and minority. Working with similar issue of censorship note: the researcher puts ‘silencing particular issues ’ to falls to this term, this study helps to understand how censorship works in the publication of a children’s book. Importantly, it might be used to represent what happens in the books withdrawal from bookstores. This strengthens what this research tries to imply. That is to battle the act of silencing and censorship in children’s books because it creates loss to the rights of authors who create, readers who are the target, and teachers who present. Not only presenting the case of censorship existence, this study also needs to refer to a previous study which elaborates the strategies to deal with it. Fanetti suggests several points for teachers who are in their effort to walk in the fine line about engaging students with challenging and challenged literature in order to have less fear and make a space for healthy controversy of any book contain ‘inappropriate’ issues or language 32 . It is important for, firstly, conceiving children as capable of understanding complex and challenging ideas by encountering the deeply-rooted conception of 32 Susan Fanetti, “A Case for Cultivating Controversy: Teaching Challenged Books in K-12 Classrooms.” The ALAN Review 40.1 2012: 6–17. children and childhood which tend to accept children as lack of numbers of capabilities. The second is that teachers need to be aware to differentiate the nature of censorship and controversy. In this case, educators have to be highly confident in discussing controversial issues to their class because so often they are over fearful about censorship that might arise when they present the uncommon topics and eventually decide to teach safely by doing self-censorship even without any trials which makes children’s access for healthy discussion degrade. The third strategy is that it is important to see with clear eyes that the real challenge in cultivating controversy superseded the individual teacher’s ability to combat them. Laws can be used as reasons for some communities to threat or to call names the teachers using controversy to educate. The fourth one is that Fanneti elaborates the appearance of hope through open and genuine discussion or dialogue which can be the space for teachers to answer parental attacks toward controversial issues in their children’s learning materials. In doing so, the comprehension policy and supportive school administrators are necessary in building the mutual trusts between the teacher as the experts in education and parents who are experts about their own children. The last strategy is gaining supports from students’ parents from the start. The ideas on updating parents on current or upcoming events in class can be valuable to connect with them. Teachers can notify them if their children are about to read a controversial book by for example giving reading list for the whole semester with brief summaries and teaching focus. In enabling the involvement of parents, teachers can minimize any sense of disenfranchisement that is so often the root of most parental protests. Such study helps this research to put suggestions that there is something can be done in fighting with censors hip as this research’s finding implies. They are useful in bringing the implication of the research to be more practical and logical when fighting against censorship is surely not an easy task for authors or educators of children’s literature especially when it regards how experts and Blume herself struggled for defences from those who attacked her novels. Moving from the discussion about censorship, reviews on Chil dren’s Literature as a genre is also necessary to address. The first theoretical perspective comes from Rose’s “The Case of Peter Pan: The Impossibility of Children’s Fiction ” 33 as one of foundational studies recently significant to the concept of Children’s Literature. In her writing, Rose uses Barrie’s Peter Pan 1904 to have far argument that rather than addressing children’s needs, children’s literature appears to be a form of seduction. A book like Barrie’s which in fact has been named as classic literature for children does not reflect the desires, interests, or characteristics of actual children. On the contrary, children’s literature perpetuates adults’ fantasies about childhood. For Rose, Barrie’s novel exemplifies the impossibility of children’s fictions because it is neither for nor about children. In this situation she adds authors unconsciously “seduce” or “colonize” children by writing books reflecting the adult ideal of children. Both children’s authors and critics both persist in conceiving of young people as a unified group of people defined by all their simplicity and 33 Jacqueline Rose, “The Case of Peter Pan: The Impossibility of Children’s Fiction.” The Children’s Culture Reader. Ed. Henry Jenkins. New York: NYU Press, 1998 95 –109. primitivism. Children’s books are then seen as vehicle which shows innocence not as property but as a portion of adults’ desire. Importantly, Rose also considers the impossibility of accurate representation through the instability of language. As well as Saussure as mentioned, Rose believes the fact that language does not simply reflect the world suggests but rather the manipulation adults present in the narrative that this lead children’s literature to be problematic. While denying this eliminates any barrier to offering definitions on the nature and perception of childhood and production of children’s literature. Rose’s idea precedes Nodelman’s argumentation about colonialism in Children’s Literature in which his approach is used in this study. Though both Rose and Nodelman agree in seeing that there is always a ‘hidden adult’ in children’s literature, the difference lies on the fact that Rose tends to emphasize the seeming innocence and evasion of adult concern in children’s literature texts, while Nodelman considers the adult concerns to be more overt but less negative about the nature of the adult presence. Yet, Rose’s study has proven something important that Children’s Literature is always problematic with the presence of adults as the writes. However, it does not mean something impossible about that. Nodelman’s argument applied in this research shows the possibility by using Blume’s novels which are written with adults’ mind yet respecting children as the readers. Necessarily, the other related study is also taken locally from Indonesia in order to give a portrait of the life of Indonesian Children’s Literature so that the results of the research can provide its benefits in advance. It is quite unfortunate that in I ndonesian academic studies on children’s literature are rarely produced and also PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI trivially viewed as well as doubted for its significance. Luckily, Purbani as one of critics finds the important fact that the child characters in five best Indonesian childre n’s fictions winners of 1996-2001 National Children’s Book are under several ideologies: perfectionism, paternalism, patriarchy, and instant ideology. The texts worship perfect heroes who are religious, intelligent, well- mannered, nationalist, brave, environmentalist, and leading. The texts also place children under ideologies that they celebrate freedom for boys but marginalize girls and hinder them from really learning through process. Those ideologies work through employment of adults as narrators and focalizers in the authoritative ways. They also operate using legitimation, fragmentation, and dissimulation strategies in order to make the ideologies appear explicitly and to strengthen the didacticism as the purposes. In doing so, Purbani observes, the texts establish the power relation in which children are seen as inferior beings and treat them more as the objects instead of subjects. The research also finds that building the perfect children is in fact the important agenda of the new Order Government. Even in the late of the era, children were still viewed as tabula rasa or blank sheet of paper which eventually leads them to be always in need of parental guidance. Another prominent view is the way how Children’s Literature is considered as the source of wisdom that didacticism is more than vital. Purbani’s dissertation which is entitled “Ideologi Anak Ideal dalam Lima Fiksi Anak Unggulan Indonesia Akhir Masa Orde Baru ” The Idealized Child in Five Best Indonesian Fictions Written in the New Order Era is used to support this research because it uncovers the hidden ideologies, power, and interest behind the PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI common assumptions about childhood which have been long believed in Indonesia as ‘common’ and unproblematic. This research says something important about Children’s Literature that it is ideological. Therefore, to uncover hidden ideologies becomes necessary to help critics to problematize the common beliefs. In other words, it is used to initiate the problematization of silencing in children’s books. Since this research also deals with the practical uses of delivering sensitive topics in literature for young readers for their daily life, Bott’s journal article entitled “Why We Must Read Young Adult Books that Deal with Sexual Content” might explain why conducting this research can be simply significant 34 . Bott observes several controversial books for young readers including the issues of rape in Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, Target by Kathleen Jeffrie Johnson, Inexcusable by Chris Lynch, and Jailbait by Leslea Newman. He finds the books offer variety of plots and solutions in which the protagonists have to cope by the power of story in which it can validate readers’ special experience and condition and give them hope and comfort in their loneliness and invisibility. This also has relation to the fact that many of young people do not find themselves in the pages of curriculum mainly used. As a result he suggests that it is necessary to consider that those often-controversial books, because such books may exactly what kids need. Brinda in her journal article “Can you name one good thing that comes out of war?”: Adolescents’ Questions about War and Conflict Are Answered in Nonfiction Literature ” also claims that young people have questions about what is right or wrong 34 C. J. Bott, “Why We Must Read Young Adult Books That Deal with Sexual Content.” The ALAN Review 33.3 2006: 26 –29. and what is true or false, and what is really behind wars, ethnic or cultural hatred, and conflict of political and cultural leaders around the world exposed in media, journalists, teachers, parents, and peers 35 . Yet, they also expect answers from the point of view of those who can tell the truth about it. Brinda names literature as a media to respect, acknowledge, guide, and inspire them with resources that accurately, aesthetically, and authentically address their questions, curiosities, and concerns. She proves that the answers toward several questions and the concern given by her students about war and conflict can be found in literature ranges from memoirs of Holocaust survivors, comments of Hitler Youth, diaries of a thirteen-year-old girl in Sarajevo, and an eighteen-year old girl in Baghdad, to images and accounts of an author who traveled with children into the more contemporary war zones of Lebanon, Mozambique, El Salvador, and Washington, DC. She argues it is due to individual human stories within situations of persecution and genocide has the ability to engage students due to the deeply human aspects including the passions and emotions that are communicated. She adds that in these stories of suffering humanity, readers may at times hear above the cries of despair, the faint, constant murmuring of the compassionate heart that will lead them out of the darkness and toward the light. White in Brinda suggests nonfiction literature about teenagers, or books with comments from teenagers facing these horrible sorts of conflicts, enables students to 35 Wanda Brinda,“‘Can You Name One Good Thing That Comes out of War?’” The ALAN Review 35.2 2008: 14 –23. read, hear, and feel the impassioned pleas, rages, and cries of young people like themselves in situations of anger, fear, loss, and hope. Identification leads to empathy, and empathy leads to understanding. The provocative, personal questions of kids are answered in accessible, honest, and relevant ways by people they will listen to because those people matter. The questions posed were only a glance of how young readers perceive conflict whether in the world or in their community. The books presented were gateways to help young people hear, see, and vicariously experience truths not from the media, websites, or history texts, but from the souls of those who have lived through war. Readers want and deserve answers to their provocative questions that go beyond mere facts, figures, maps, and political rhetoric. They need meaningful words and inspiration from those who have experiences to which they can relate. The last journal article written by Brinda surely adds the significance of this research since it proves how nonfiction literature can provide information and engagement of feeling at the same time about scarce topic like wars. It confirms the role of literature to address the questions of young people, not only about the specifics of certain topics like war, but how the characters or the survivors found inspiration and support to live, to hope when facing difficult life and envisioned a future in the confusion of their present circumstances.

2. Review of Related Theories

As this study conducts the relation of voicing the silenced to the enjoyment of reading and the practical usage of literature, it is necessary to clarify some terms used as well as to support the research with the related theories. The related theories PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI discussed in this part contribute to be the bases in understanding the factors promoting the act of silencing or censorship in Children’s Literature. The factors include the problem of generalization in understanding children, the common assumptions about childhood, and the colonial attitudes when dealing with them. It is then also important to discuss dulce de utile which is about kinds of pleasures should be met in reading literature and the relevance of having literature read related to the real life.

1.1. The Problems of Generalization

and Common Assumptions in Understanding ‘Childhood’ and Children’s Literature Understanding “children” is inevitably needed to constitute the understanding of ‘Children’s Literature’. Some prominent scientists and psychologists have engaged in laying the foundation for understand ing ‘children’. The theorists whom ideas have been widely applied when dealing with giving answers on “who are children” for examples are: Freud, Piaget, and Erikson. The three of them had developed significant studies particularly on children’s developmental stages in their various ways. In a short explanation, Freud 1856-1939 developed a general study of psychological development from infancy to adulthood. Erikson’s psychosocial 1902- 1994 based on Freud’s psychosexual took broader view of the social and cultural components of an individual’s developmental stages. While Piaget 1986-1980 described the development based on children’s cognitive, how children think. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI As well as the other theorists, Piagetian theory on developmental stages has been continually developed and expanded to help literary experts determine the best and the most appropriate education, including literature, for children. However, Nodelman observes that the empirical study of Piaget seems to lie on the serious underestimation in seeing children which supposed to be misled by his own unconsciousness assumptions about childhood in general: the assumptions that thought develops in an evolutionary process in which what comes later is superior to what comes earlier 36 . Piagetan theory sees the stages through which childhood thinking pass as imperfect approximations of an ideal adult standard of mental functioning, and assumes that the worlds children invent at earlier stages of development are false and deficient of an objective truth that is only available to mature adults. It is then unfortunate that such classification leads to the inevitable generalization in which children are understood to be a class of people which are so often seen to inherent inferior qualities which distinguish the imperfect children from the perfect adults. These are contrast to what Purbani believes that children are in fact heterogeneous in personality, interests, characteristics, and talents 37 . Coles in Nodelman also demonstrates his disagreement to the generalization in defining children since he reported his experiences with the ‘out-of-categories’ children who are never involved in the Swiss and white middle-class children observed by Piaget 38 . 36 Nodelman, The Pleasures 76. 37 Widyastuti Purbani,. Sastra Anak Indonesia: Kegagalan Memahami Siapa Anak. Yogyakarta State University, Yogyakarta. 2003. Children’s Literature Seminar. 38 Nodelman 83.