Typical Case Prototype

About Children’s Texts

• texts are simple because children are simple
• bright, colorful, with happy endings because children inherently hate to learn
• DIDACTIC – should teach a clear lesson, but also make that lesson entertaining – should make learning fun
• or it can have a lesson that you have to look for (but it is still there)
• children like books they can relate / but they also like fantasies
• shouldn’t describe unacceptable behavior / shouldn’t be frightening / should have positive role models

About Children

• All of this is because children have short attention spans
• They can be permanently damaged by what they read, they are emotionally vulnerable
• Children are innocent
• Children are egocentric
• Children are not yet civilized
• Children are highly imaginative
• There is a direct connection between being a child and being full of wonder, creativity, curiosity, fantasy

About Reading Children’s Books

• The best thing to look for is the lesson of a book, to see if it is worth recommending
• The second best thing to look for is if the book is appropriate for the age level
• Books generally have one meaning, created by the author for us to understand
• The pleasure children have in reading is the pleasure we want them to have
• The best children’s books “force” children to use their imagination

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An Alternative Set of Principles

• “Innocent” is not something children are, it is something we want them to be.
• Children’s books are not inherently simple (free from politics or sex or profound meaning), we just want them to be. That is what adults tend to write (or think they are supposed to write), that is what adults tend to buy and give to children, and those are the types of book we are used to growing up.
• There isn’t necessarily a type of reading that involves “adult understanding,” and a type of reading that involves “child understanding.” Each reader has different experiences and knowledge.
• Children have individual tastes.
• Authors bring to their texts unconscious assumptions.
• Each author presents a fantasized image of childhood.
• A text can mean much more than what the author intends.
• A text can have many simultaneous meanings.