‘I connected so well with it’: a teen mother talks about reading

In this paper, one 19-year-old married mother who was sexually abused when younger discusses the painful and important role reading has played in her life. By using narrative discourse analysis, I parse the young mother’s spoken narrative and illuminate the emotions that cluster around her reading experiences. I discover that she has used reading as a way to make sense of the traumatic experiences of her childhood. I discover as well that, though she evidences immaturity, her moral thinking – refined through her roles as daughter, mother, and wife – is more nuanced than are the texts she is able to read. The questions I ask about her relationship to these books can be generalized to many non-traditional students going to high schools, or reading in book clubs, today.