My son and I read The Bear Snores On (Karma Wilson, 2002) in Jakarta, Indonesia, 2004. It was our favourite book at the time 🙂
Defining children’s literature is no easy task! From our readings, the definitions firstly of ‘children’ and then of ‘literature’ appear very flexible, and often seem culturally dependent. It was interesting to read about the diverse interpretations of childhood throughout history and through the lens of various theories (Burke, 2008; Guldberg, 2009). I found Hunt’s definition of children’s literature helpful:
“Children’s books are different from adults’ books: They are written for a different audience, with different skills, different needs, and different ways of reading: Equally, children experience texts in ways which are often unknowable, but which many of us strongly suspect to be very rich and complex” (Hunt as cited in Barone, 2010, p. 8).
I think that an age dependent definition of “children’s” literature presents rather a grey area as children get older – one 16 year old reader may handle and be interested in themes that another 16 year old is not ready for. In addition, according to Short (2018), adults make up 55% of YA literature. So at what age should we drop the ‘young’ in ‘young adult’ when describing literature?
In addition, I like Hunt’s qualifier – that a book is good FOR (something) rather than just judging literature as “good” or “bad” (Hunt as cited in Barone, 2010, p. 7). Barone uses the example of the Nancy Drew series being criticized for being unsophisticated but yet so many of us read and loved this series as kids (myself included!) Neil Gaiman agrees – there are no ‘bad’ authors for children if that is who they want to read and it helps them up the “reading ladder” (Gaiman, 2013). This is such a good reminder as an aspiring TL!
I can resonate with Barone’s point (2010, p. 7) that a good book is one that causes the reader to ponder, wonder, think, and may internally refer to at a later date. I think we all have a set of “good children’s literature/books” in our minds that may be very different from one another’s. Mine would include Charlotte’s Web and Enid Blyton’s The Faraway Tree series and anything by Roald Dahl for when I was younger and Tolkien and Victoria Holt (!) for when I was a little older. My love of history (and later, teaching history) grew out of reading incredibly sobering books such as Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (Dee Brown, 1970) and Wild Swans (Jung Chang, 1991) in my teenage years. These books stay with me.
References
Barone, D. M. (2010). Children’s literature in the classroom engaging lifelong readers. Guildford Press.
Burke, C. (2008). Theories of childhood. Encyclopedia of Children and Childhood in History and Society. Retrieved February 22, 2021, from http://www.faqs.org/childhood/So-Th/Theories-of-Childhood.html
Gaiman, N. (2013, October 16). Neil Gaiman: Why our future depends on libraries, reading and daydreaming. The Guardian. Retrieved February 22, 2021, from https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/15/neil-gaiman-future-libraries-reading-daydreaming
Guldberg, H. (2009). Reclaiming childhood: Freedom and play in an age of fear. Taylor & Francis.
