We were asked in Module 2 to conduct a personal stocktake of our knowledge of children’s literature.

I am thankful that I can say I had a childhood immersed in quality literature. To be honest, reading was less my thing and more of my mum’s. Her father was in the military so they were constantly moving around the world. She was always leaving new friends whereas the characters in her books could go with her. This love of reading was something she was always keen to share with us kids. We were frequent visitors of the public library and always participated in their summer reading challenges. She read aloud in the car on every holiday. She read to us before bed and on weekends. She bought us books. She talked to us about what she was reading. She formed a book club in our community which is still running nearly two decades later! When I was uninterested in the “classics” as a kid she found a doll wanted and said I could earn it by reading 10 books from her “classics” list (I earned two dolls that summer!).

Her persistent modelling certainly had an impact on me. I caught her love of reading and continued to read often visiting the local bookstore to see what the “Top 10” books were (which I then ordered from the local library as I was a poor uni student/graduate). I read books to my oldest non-stop till she could read herself. This, however, is where things changed. By the time she was reading independently, I had 4 kids and reading became a luxury I couldn’t afford. I feel like there is a solid decade sized gap in my knowledge of children’s literature.

My kids are now independent enough that I can read again and I am trying to get back into the grove of reading for pleasure. Working on my Masters and teaching impact hugely on my free time but these are some of the strategies I am using or hope to use to build my current knowledge base of children’s literature:

• Read a chapter of a book each night before bed with my younger kids
• I have a good idea of what is popular with the kids at my school so I am hoping to read some of these books over the summer.
• My kids and I are also planning a weekly trip to the library this summer which I can use to expand my repertoire of children’s literature
• Many Young Adult titles are available as audiobooks which I can listen to while folding laundry and doing odd jobs around the house
• When I am working at my school’s library more next year I can ask students about what they are reading and their thoughts on it.
• Lastly, I have been trying to expand my familiarity with current children’s literature by reading my classmates and professors blogs and gleaning some quality knowledge from their content.

Please feel free to comment on what ideas you might have to help build my knowledge!