D R A M A++Q U E E N

BY INDA SCHAENEN | The moment my daughter, then 6, finished reading "My Tooth Is Loose," I made a speech that I believed to be magnanimous, noble, farsighted and wise.

"Now you can read," I began. "Our written language is entirely available to you. I will not tell you what you can and cannot read. The words you will see are beyond my control. I only ask that when you happen upon some piece of writing that you do not understand or have questions about, you come to your daddy or me and let us help you with it."

Placid as usual in the face of sonorous, highfalutin' drama, she agreed to the terms as I spelled them out. I felt righteous and cool at the same time, not an easily achieved sensation. And things went along swimmingly for a long while. She didn't have any questions, it seemed, about "My Tooth Is Loose." Nor about "Sleep Tight, Pete." Nor (later on) about the entire Black Stallion series. Nor about "National Velvet." Nor about "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz." Nor the Little House series, nor the Narnian classics. "Alice in Wonderland" and "The Wonderful Adventures of Nils" were big favorites, but they generated no questions. And there were no consultations over "Watership Down," which she read this past year during second grade, except when she suggested that I read it again because "it is a really good book."

In fact, she presented me with exactly zero of the kinds of questions and concerns I had been expecting all along. I'm not sure what I was expecting, probably long conversations with her about justice and loyalty in Prince Caspian. But she has proved to be a very private reader. Mostly she emerges from a book looking thoughtful and preoccupied. She'll often suggest I read something she has recently finished. And often I do, reading it more for getting a sense of who she is than for its own sake.

My daughter is not drawn to junk books, or what I perceive to be junk books. Until recently, she has never asked me to procure her a book that I might -- were I the censoring kind -- be forced to censor. I had been suspicious of the squeaky-clean Boxcar children, but after reading one or two volumes I find them perfectly OK, and gladly add to her collection whenever I can. My freedom-of-reading speech, in short, had never really been put to the test. Until a couple of months ago.

I had dashed into a bookstore looking for a couple of novels to read over spring vacation. There was no rhyme or reason to my selection. A friend who moonlights as a salesperson suggested "Wicked" by Gregory Maguire, a fictional biography of the Wicked Witch of the West. He said a bunch of the employees had been recommending it enthusiastically. I had my doubts, but made the purchase and left.

When my daughter saw this book her face lit up. I could see her craving it, the way a different person might crave an ice cream sundae gliding by on a waiter's tray toward the patron at the next table. What was it about? she wanted to know. I told her. Could she read it when I was done? My speech of long ago turned to ashes in my mouth.

"I'll have to see what it's like," I said.

"But you said you'd never tell me I couldn't read something," said the girl with the elephant memory, who hadn't once, in all these years, ever tested the terms of our agreement. Now I was forced to eat the ashes.

"You're right," I said. "But this is written for grown-ups and I have to read it first to see if it's appropriate before I say yes."

I read the book happily, found it thoroughly imagined, intelligent, funny and well written. But there are parts, great parts, which are both merrily and darkly raunchy. Other parts, too, for one reason or another, are not appropriate for my 8-and-a-half-year-old child, even assuming that she would probably read them uncomprehendingly. She saw me happy in the book, and that made her even angrier. When I finished, she asked me again.

"Please?"

"No."

She became truly upset. It is hard to say which she was more angry about, the fact that I had changed our reading policy or that she couldn't read that particular book.

"You can read it when you're older," I said. "I'm sure you'll love it when you're older. But it is definitely not appropriate for you now."

She was in a tearful stew, but accepted the verdict. As did I. The truth is, I am the censoring kind.

N E X T+P A G E: Censoring? Filtering. That's it: filtering