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I, Mediator. Mediation and readers' education by Felipe Munita (review)

2023; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 61; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/bkb.2023.a903445

1918-6983

Pablo Álvarez Domínguez,

Literacy and Educational Practices

Reviewed by: I, Mediator. Mediation and readers' education by Felipe Munita Pablo Álvarez YO, MEDIADOR(A). Mediación y formación de lectores. [I, MEDIATOR. Mediation and readers' education] By Felipe Munita. Octaedro Editorial, 2021, 260 pages. ISBN: 978-84-19023-14-8 "Good books teach reading." Based on this premise, Munita weaves a theoretical and practical framework for teaching literary reading in school and literature promotion in public contexts, such as libraries. The book is divided into three main parts, and with the concept of the mediator as the central axis, Munita presents a fundamental book for thinking about and discussing mediators' and readers' education. All within the framework of literary reading, this concept seems to have been relativized in recent times. First, we must consider the concept of 'mediator,' widely used in the Spanish-speaking [End Page 71] context and other languages, but not very widespread in Anglo-Saxon theoretical discussions. With that in mind, Munita refers to the root of the word "mediator" and adds the "bridge metaphor" to understand mediation – and the role of the mediator – as a link between the book and the reader. Thus, Munita ventures and sketches a definition of what a reading mediator and a school mediator of literary reading could be. The book's first section establishes a theoretical discussion of the concepts of reading and mediation in public libraries and school contexts. In this vein, it problematizes literary reading in public spaces, the role of the institutions promoting reading, the function of libraries, and the material conditions that facilitate reading. Above all, the section discusses the critical role of the agent who is closest to the readers: the librarian. For its part, in the school context, the section takes a critical look at literary reading in the classroom, the selection of a meaningful literary corpus, and the assessments of books with which the school literary reading mediator works. This first section relies on the pivotal notions of "participation" and "distancing", which are understood as emotional and intellectual approaches to the literary work, respectively. It is worth dwelling on this point to understand the book's contribution. For a long time, the idea of promoting "the pleasure of reading" as a main objective of literary reading has been widespread. However, this notion is problematic when this pleasure in reading is considered a spontaneous process that emerges naturally without the mediation of interpretative tools. Munita seems to subtly ask: is this another form of exclusion in reading? Would every child enjoy the pleasure of reading if they were not given the means for such an experience? Consequently, Munita calls for the importance of promoting the "interpretation schemes" of literary theory: "an essential condition in the processes of cultural appropriation" (p. 42). The second section of the book presents applications and practices of reading mediation. The analysis focuses on the importance of the mediator's evaluation of the literary works; the selection of a wide and diverse range of quality literary works, and something that is fundamental: "the mediator's ability to observe the expressive effects that the use of certain literary devices has on the construction of the overall meaning of a book and, by extension, on the reading activity of the book" (99). Munita focuses his attention on what he calls "the architecture of a work", part of "attending to the inner workings of the text, to its most significant aesthetic-literary resources, to the mechanisms and procedures by means of which it captures the reader's attention" (101). This could be a way of understanding the construction of the global meaning of a book. Munita introduces a series of books that could "teach how to read". Books that manage to combine the processes of participation and distancing from the work, thanks to their high literary and aesthetic quality and an effective mediation, would facilitate the readers' entry into these practices of pleasurable reading. Works by authors such as Paloma Valdivia, Margaret Wild, Michael Ende, Roald Dahl, Liliana Bodoc, Blanca Varela, and Gabriel García Márquez, to name a few, show the wide variety and diversity of the literary corpus suggested by Munita. The third and final section offers a...