Introduction
The claim is frequently made that watching television is replacing reading as a source of both entertainment and information, and will eventually do so completely. As book publishers, we obviously do not believe that this is true. However, there is some validity to the claim, and it is worth examining carefully. As usual, the real situation is much more complex than most people realize and can't be reduced to any such sweeping generalizations.
There are few people who are old enough to know from direct experience how vast are the changes that have taken place in our world in the last century. The biography of a man who was born in 1870 and raised in a rural backwater named Dry Folk in the area of southern Illinois known as Little Egypt is highly illuminating. He wrote:
"Our books were an ancient, musty-smelling Bible, originally bound in black leather but with one of its covers missing, and a book about the Great Plains, called The Buffalo Land. Later we secured two more books from somewhere, a History of Andersonville Prison and Robinson Crusoe. We borrowed the county newspaper when we could and read it, usually three weeks late."
He also described his school, as follows:
"There were four months of school in winter and two in summer. After the summer term in Hard-scrabble we moved into Ward School District; but the process was the same there, and everywhere, so far as I know. Our textbooks were not uniform; we took what we had and the teacher somehow managed to get along +++ With what help the teacher could give, pupils gathered from this array of books the learning available in rural areas at that time +++ One teacher in Ward School told us in a moment of pause that he had been on a train that 'traveled 60 miles an hour.' We sat open-mouthed and incredulous at that."
Even in a seemingly television-dominated age, most families today certainly possess more than four books, newspapers thrive, and people generally read more than they did in 1870. In fact, we are subjected to a barrage of information from all sides and many different media. And we begin receiving that information at a much earlier age than anyone did in the past. Children learn more things faster now than they ever did years ago, even though not all of those things come to them through the process of formal education. Today's youngsters are, by any comparison we can make, fantastically sophisticated about current events, science, politics, and many other things-including sex.
At the same time, children no longer assimilate all this data vicariously, as they did when the school was their primary source of knowledge. They see more, they travel more, they experience more than did the children of even a generation ago. In this particular sense the generation gap is very real, and while the change must be called progress it has also created some very definite problems.
What some of those problems can be is illustrated by April in Chains, the new novel by Paul Roan. April, the heroine, is thirteen, and the daughter of parents who happen to be very young themselves. She is beautiful, pampered, and hopelessly spoiled. Her father is an aerospace engineer, and the level of intelligence in the entire family is high. It is not so high, however, that the family members can overcome all the difficulties that April's blossoming into young womanhood create.
April's sex education has been an excellent one. On an intellectual level, she knows all she has to in order to cope with her own newborn sexuality. On an emotional level, she is far from being fully prepared. The resulting events have their effects on everyone in the family: April herself, her mother Gloria, her father Ernie, and her two handsome young brothers, Joey and Artie.
Although at first she is confused and unsure of herself, April gradually becomes the dominating force in the family. This may sound improbable, but Mr. Roan's novel shows in convincing detail how it could really happen. Mr. Roan studied social psychology at both Harvard and Purdue universities before deciding to pursue a career in journalism and literature, and has been editor of a magazine for schoolteachers. His facts are authentic, his characters very true-to-life, and his perceptions are incisive. You will believe completely in April and her family, even though some of their adventures will astonish you.