Learning About Books and Children

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Knowing Children’s Literature 1. Newbery Award Committee. Form a mock Newbery award committee and review the medal winners and Honor Books for one year. Do the children agree with the opinions of the judges? Have the children state their reasons for the choices they have made. 2. The Infl uence of Literature. Ask children to interview two or three classmates or family members about the infl uence of literature in their lives. In what ways have books been important to them? What titles are most memorable? Why? joyment of the book. Other recent titles included in the trend are Peter Sis’s memoir The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain, Shaun Tan’s 128-page, wordless picturebook The Arrival, Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, and Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid. The type of multimodal interweaving of image and word can be found in other formats for older readers. Editor Dugald A. Steer’s Dragonology (2003), Egyptology (2004), Wizardology (2005), and Mythology (2007) are multimodal texts that include pull-outs, pop-ups, maps, and other visuals, as well as novelty items like dragon skin, phoenix feathers, and jewels embedded in the pages. Operation Red Jericho (2005) by Joshua Mowll is an adventure novel bound like a personal diary and including maps, diagrams, and other documents. Engineered books have risen to new heights with Robert Sabuda and Matthew Reinhart’s Encyclopedia Mythologica: Fairies and Magical Creatures (2008). This wonder of paper engineering presents multiple pop-ups on each double-page spread and will delight readers of all ages. Books such as these seem to reflect the increasingly visual interests of twenty-first-century children. The Development of a Multiliterate Society Dire predictions have been made about the death of the book as we know it today; our society has been called a postliterate society. Modern technology has certainly affected literature and the arts and given this generation a host of technological wonders. Today’s youngsters take in stride and quickly master such media innovations as MUVE’s, blogs, and Twitters, which seem overwhelming to an older generation who grew into the classroom Visit the Online Learning Center at www.mhhe.com/kiefer10e to fi nd these additional classroom activities: 3. Create Book Awards 4. Book Recommendations 5. Survey of Reading Habits 6. What Makes a Classic a Classic? 7. Books as Time Capsules up without cell phones (not to mention tele vision). 48 The Internet and the World Wide Web have had an incredible impact on the world of children’s books in the past few years. Through the International Children’s Digital Library , children from all over the world have access to books if they can access a computer. The opportunity to meet authors and illustrators through their Web sites and discussions in chat rooms offer children the oppor tunity to discuss books with other readers from around the world. Online bookstores welcome reader reviews, and a book search will reveal that children are responding with enthusiastic and often insightful commentary. Furthermore, Web sites of groups that provide information on and criteria for evaluating multicultural books and the Web sites of multicultural publishers give us access to multicultural titles that in the past would have been hard to find. 49 It seems likely, then, that today’s youth will become multiliterate, using new technologies for the rapid retrieval of information of all kinds, for writing and editing their thoughts, for communicating about books with children in distant places, and for creating original programs of their own. Just as many youth today are multilingual, so the youth of the future will become multiliterate and multimodal, reading a wide variety of formats. They will still need reading for a wide range of skills, and they will need books for pleasure. Perhaps, most importantly, they will still need to touch the pages of books and be able to hug books close to their hearts. Those of us who love literature and have witnessed its positive influence on children’s lives can only hope that literature will continue to live and flourish. 48See Joyce Valenza and Doug Johnson, “Reboot Camp,” School Library Journal (May 2008): 56–57. 49See, for example, Oyate , the Cooperative Children’s Book Center , Children’s Book Press , Lee & Low , and Groundwood Books . Chapter One Knowing Children’s Literature 27
ChapterReview Visit the Online Learning Center at www.mhhe.com/kiefer10e to take chapter quizzes, practice with key terms, and review the chapter. Explorations 1. Can you think of any one book you read and reread as a child? What particular qualities of the story appealed to you? Reread it now and evaluate it according to the criteria established in this chapter. Would you still recommend it for children? 2. Read one of the series books: for instance, one from the Baby-Sitters Club, Sweet Valley High, Boxcar Children, or Nancy Drew series. Look closely at the literary craftsmanship of the book. How many contrived incidents can you fi nd? Do the characters have real strengths and weaknesses? If you were to read this book aloud, how would it sound? 3. Read a recently published children’s book and write a brief reaction to it. Then fi nd two or more published reviews of that book. List the criteria that seem important to the reviewers. How are their criteria like or diff erent from yours? WebLinks Visit the Online Learning Center at www.mhhe.com/ kiefer10e to fi nd links to the following children’s literature Web sites: American Library Association Best Books for Young Adults American Library Association Notable Children’s Books Boston Globe—Horn Book Award Winners Caldecott Medal Home Page Carol Hurst’s Children’s Literature Site Children’s Choices Cooperative Children’s Book Center Coretta Scott King Award Database of Award-Winning Children’s Literature Digital Librarian: Children’s Literature Edgar Awards—Mystery Writers of America Fairrosa Cyber Library for Children’s Literature Golden Kite Award Hans Christian Andersen Awards RelatedReadings Coles, Robert. The Call of Stories: Teaching and the Moral Imagination. Boston: Houghton, 1989. A noted child psychiatrist describes the infl uence of literature in his own life and its impact on the young adults he has taught at Harvard University and elsewhere. 4. Write your reading autobiography. What memories do you have of your early reading? Did either of your parents read to you? Do you recall any of the books they read? Did any teachers or librarians read aloud to you? What were some of your favorite books? Do you recall any that you did not like? Do you know why you did not like them? 5. Go to the Children’s Literature Database at www.mhhe .com/kiefer10e and choose a general topic such as families, friends, or animals. Enter the topic in the search box. Search on the “all” button and sort by author. Browse through the list and notice how the books are sorted. Choose an interest level and fi nd one or two authors who seem familiar to you. Locate and read some of their books in a library. International Reading Association Children’s and Young Adult’s Book Awards Internet School Library Media Center Children’s Literature and Language Arts Page Internet School Library Media Center Literary Prizes KidSpace @ The Internet Public Library Margaret A. Edwards Award Mildred L. Batchelder Award Nancy Keane’s Booktalks NCTE Award for Poetry for Children Newbery Medal Home Page Orbis Pictus Award for Outstanding Nonfi ction for Children Pura Belpré Award Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Medal Scott O’Dell Historical Fiction Award YALSA Booklists and Book Awards Egoff , Sheila, Gordon Stubbs, Ralph Ashley, and Wendy Sutton. Only Connect: Readings on Children’s Literature. 3rd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. An excellent collection of essays on children’s literature, encompassing literary criticism, standards, changing tastes, children’s 28 Part 1 Learning About Books and Children www.mhhe.com/kiefer10e
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