When I was a child I loved the Little House on the Prairie, (Wilder, 1963) book series. My mother read the series aloud to us children, I reread them myself several times through my adolescent years, devoured the TV series alongside my friends and siblings and later enjoyed reading the series to my own children. Each time I read the series I got something different out of it. At first, it was the sense of adventure and discovery, then the appeal of Laura as a Tom Boy, later it was the appeal of the romance, finally, as I read the series to my children, it was not the children but the mother I identified with: her moving West and leaving her family and wealth behind, the husband who wouldn’t settle but was always chasing after new dreams, the poverty, the bigotry, the fear, the faith, the creativity and resilience.

I had this experience in my mind as I read Chapter 1 of Children’s Literature: A Developmental Perspective (Travers and Travers, 2008). It was interesting to relate my “biopsychosocial” experience through the different stages of my development and how I responded differently to the story as I grew up.

Some of my takeaways from the chapter are:

• Selecting the right book for the right child takes a knowledge of the child’s personality and interests as well as an understanding of their individual cognitive and language capacity. This makes age alone an inadequate guide to help children select books.
• Knowledge about a psychosocial perspective of development helps teachers and librarians in advising book selection for a particular child. My paraphrased summaries of the match between goodness-of-fit and appropriate literature according to Travers & Travers (2008, p. 10-12):
  • .Early years (ages 0-2)–books that emphasise the relationship with their parents and rhythm of language
  • Preschool (ages 2-4)–books that increase a child’s self-control and independence as well as imagination
  • Early Primary (ages 5-7)–a focus on friendships and broader culture beyond the family and perseverance in acquiring knowledge and skills and problem-solving
  • Intermediate Years (ages 8-11)–books that demonstrate a sense of adventure and the broader world. Relationships and friendships continue to be an important focus as well as problem-solving.
  • Middle School (ages 12-14)–books that emphasis identity.
  • High School (ages 14-18)–still books that focus on identity but with a ‘coming of age’ focus of gaining maturity and wisdom.
• Developmental psychology helps teachers, librarians and parents to comprehend a child’s response to literature by understanding their stage of development and how they filter their experiences through that stage.

As a future teacher librarian, one of the most helpful things I’ve taken from this chapter is an understanding of how this knowledge can be applied to purchasing books across the year levels in my school.

References:

Travers, B. E., & Travers, J. F. (2008). Children’s literature: A developmental perspective. John Wiley & Sons.

Wilder, L. I., (1963). Little house on the prairie. New York: Scholastic Book Services.