Bailey
asked
Margaret Atwood:
I read Cat's Eye for school and The Handmaid's Tale is on our summer reading list. Did you ever mean for your books to be read in classes? How does it feel to know that schools use your books?
Margaret Atwood
Hello: I myself discovered many authors through school reading lists and through school anthologies. The positives are: young readers can find the world opening up to them through books they study. The negatives may include bad experiences kids have – if they don't like the book or the teacher, or the way the book is taught. I had an excellent (indeed legendary) teacher called Miss Bessie B. Billings, to whom I pay tribute in a story called "My Last Duchess." It's in a collection called "Moral Disorder." That's the way we used to be taught; I can't say it did me any harm… So I suppose my answer to your question is twofold: I meet a lot of readers who first encountered my work in school (good!) And I can only assume there is another group who would run away very fast if they saw me coming, for exactly the same reason.
Reading is individual, and not all tastes are alike. And that in itself is a good thing. We're not ants.
Reading is individual, and not all tastes are alike. And that in itself is a good thing. We're not ants.
More Answered Questions
Eugenia (Genie In A Book)
asked
Margaret Atwood:
I found "The Handmaid's Tale" to be such a poignant and perceptive novel which I loved! Are there any particular events or other contextual elements from the period of time which you wrote it in, which drove you to write the book? Even though it is largely classified as a dystopian novel, do you personally see any possible utopian features within it?
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