The other day, Anne-Marie posted about online craft tutorials and pointed out that they often assume some skill or knowledge on the part of the reader. If not, the reader can search for more tutorials or ask questions in the comments.

I think that one of the things she is suggesting is that information literacy lessons can benefit from this technique. Assume your audience is smart, most of them will follow you and be interested, and the rest will catch up. I’ve noticed that Anne-Marie and Rachel give presentations this way and it is something I very much admire.

But it also had me thinking about my experience in college, of finding that I had to sink or swim, and foundering. Lucky for me, or so I thought, was that part of the system was that no one else had to know you were about to get kicked out of college. The last thing I want is people abandoning libraries because the bar to entry is too high.

I don’t think this is what Anne-Marie was suggesting at all, even remotely, but it was part of a panicked reaction that I had and got over. I think a lot of librarians may share the fear that people must crawl before they walk, that it is dangerous to give people tools who don’t know how to use them, and that our values are immutable and essential to doing anything well.

To solve the problem, I turned my attention to post-apocalyptic children’s literature.

I watched the film adaptation of City of Ember just before new year’s on a cross-country flight coming back from a memorial service for my wife’s grandmother. In the trip out, I had picked up and read Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, also recently adapted to film, and also set in our dark days ahead.

I had originally thought I would write a post comparing the two books and their movie versions, both in mysteriously changed worlds but one full of hope, one full of despair, [spoiler ahead] one where babes grow to save the world, the other where they are food.

Well that’s not going to happen, because I read the Anne-Marie’s post and because there is so much about literacy in City of Ember and because who knows if and when the film version of The Road is even going to be released.

City of Ember tells the story of two young teens trying to save their sunless and isolated city from certain destruction. The Builders had created Ember generations ago in order to save the human race from some other apocalypse, but now the city is failing: the electric generator is on the fritz, the food stores are running out, and corrupt politicians are exploiting the good people.

To keep the people from seeking the outside world, all knowledge of it is forbidden, and none passed down to future generations. They have all the benefits of technology without any understanding of its origins. People know how to replace a light bulb, but not how it makes light. The “beginning of the river” is a 15-minute walk from “the end of the river”, a running joke between the author Jeanne DuPrau and her readers that illustrated just how little the people of Ember actually know.

And they don’t care to know, either, except that Lina Mayfleet and Doon Harrow are different. Instead of accepting their randomly assigned vocations given on their graduation day (Ember sure could use a sorting hat), they switch with each other so that Lina runs around the city as a messenger and Doon labors underneath in the “pipeworks”. Doon wants to see if he can fix the generator, and Lina dreams of another city with a blue sky.

Besides being one of the few citizens making use of their free will, Doon and Lina also experience a literacy event in the book. Everyone goes to school and can read and write of course, but Doon also spends time in the library, which is poorly organized.

The books were arranged by subject, but even so, it wasn’t easy to find what you wanted. A book about moths, for instance, might be under “M” for moths, or “I” for insects, or “B” for bugs. It might even be under “F” for flying things.

With no knowledge passed down from the city’s original inhabitants, all of the books are written by people of Ember. In the library scene, Doon is hoping to find out how to make a “moving light”, but only finds a book about the dangers of fire, and realizes he knows just as much as the author on the subject.

Lina has her literacy event at the same point in the story. Paper is scarce, but her toddling sister has been chewing on some that came from a mysterious and forgotten box in the closet. She pieces together what is left and realizes the writing is in the same “small, perfect printing” used for can labels and along the sides of pencils - i.e., typeface.

Our heroes believe the writing is important but no one else does. They are too busy being scared, believing the Builders will come and save them, or stealing and gluttonously consuming the last can of pineapple that will ever exist.

Lina’s message was indeed left by the Builders, who didn’t foresee that hiding knowledge of Ember’s past and future would lead to its destruction. Literacy and free will help Lina and Doon plan the city’s salvation, except that those very traits also make them enemies of the state (lovingly represented by Bill Murray in the film adaptation).

As they leave Ember behind to escape together with Lina’s paper-pulping little sister, they find one last puzzle that readers can figure out more easily than the heroes.

What they saw puzzled and disappointed them. Lina’s box was full of smooth, white rods, each about ten inches long. At the end of each one, a little bit of string poked out. In Doon’s box were dozens of small packets wrapped in a slippery material. He opened one and found a lot of short wooden sticks, each with a blue bblob on the end. Both boxes had a label on the inside of the lid. THe label on Lina’s box said “Candles.” The label on Doon’s said “Matches,” and under it was a white, inchi-wide strip of some kind of rough, pebbly material.

“What does ‘Candles mean?” Lina said, puzzled. She took out one of the white rods. It felt slick, almost gray.

“And what does ‘Matches’ mean?” said Doon. “Matches what?”

Duprau’s joke is an old one, and I’m reminded of Lord Dunsany’s The Charwoman’s Shadow, in which “Ramón Alonzo Learns a Mystery Known to the Reader”. Dunsany’s readers know the mystery of literacy, of course. Because we know that mystery as well, we are confident that Lina and Doon will solve their own.

They do, and I think the message is simple: even with partial information, free, literate people will win out and make their way to a better future. The freedom matters as much as the literacy. My connection back to the beginning of this post is a stretch, but here goes: if all you get to do is teach people the hard stuff, go ahead and skip the basics, it’s not the end of the world.