Child Reader and Literary Work: Children's Literature Merges Two Perspectives

Abstract

Child Reader and Literary Work:Children's Literature Merges Two Perspectives Barbara A. Lehman (bio) "Grab a book and let the book grab you." This was a sign posted in the reading corner of my fourth grade classroom. It identified the fundamental event in a literary experience: what Rosenblatt has called the transaction between the reader and the text. While I tried to introduce my students to books of literary quality, I noticed that certain books captured their interest more than others and that these children's choices and critical acclaim from adults frequently were not congruent. Nor were my students unique. Nilsen, Peterson, and Searfoss, in a study conducted in Arizona, examined the disparity between books children and adults critics choose and discovered a negative correlation "between the praise of respected critics and the reaction of the majority of children" (530). The basic problem, then, is why do some books (especially those receiving literary awards from adult selection committees) "enrapture the critics and leave children cold" (Kimmel 38)? This dilemma is not new (see for example, Schlager's "Factors" study); it is related to how "children's literature" is defined. One definition of "children's literature" describes it as books that children enjoy reading. This, however, would include some books that do not meet literary criteria as well as some books that originally were not intended for children but that do appeal to them. Another definition of "children's literature" describes it as books written for children. The problem with this definition is that it, too, includes non-literary books, particularly didactic ones, in addition to those literary works intended for children but that appeal to adults more than to children. A third perspective views "children's literature" as part of literature as a whole, but distinct in that books written for children must unite literary merit with child appeal. Children's literature, state Sutherland and Arbuthnot, "consists of books that are not only read and enjoyed, but also that have been written for children and that meet high literary and artistic standards" (5). Therefore, to judge children's books solely by adult standards of criticism (as argued by the critic, John Rowe Townsend) is to ignore whether those books hold any relevance for children's literary needs and to "miss the elusive quality that children intuitively seek in a book" (Schlager 1974, 1). After all, the authors, editors, publishers, critics, and often even the purchasers of children's books are adults while the intended audience is children. Is popularity with child readers enough then? I think not. Many of the books my fourth graders enjoyed would not meet literary criteria. But although children's tastes may not be sufficient, they cannot be ignored. Nist states that "no study of children's literature is adequate which focuses on the prestigious to the exclusion of the popular" (8). Somehow, there must be a fusion of merit and child appeal. Gaining an understanding of the qualities in books that compel children to read is important for literary reasons. Children's literature has suffered, at least in the past, from low status—"kiddy lit"—and from children's authors being accused of playing in a "literary sandbox" (Arthur Ransome, quoted in Bator 22). Fadiman even observes that frequently children's [End Page 123] literature is denigrated by scholars through omission. "Literary historians leave out children's litrature, as they might leave out the 'literature' of pidgin-English" (10). While Townsend's position holds that "there is no such thing as children's literature, there is just literature" (378), such thinking actually belittles children's literature as a field of study in its own right. Children's literature gains credibility through recognition of its distinctive qualities and by staking its claim as a "sovereign state" (Fadiman 9). How can these "distinctive qualities" be identified? One fruitful means of gathering clues lies in the serious study of books children choose to read and with which they have had successful transactions. Perhaps by examining the nature of these books, we could learn about "the common denominator which 'hooks' children" (Schlager 1978, 137). Furthermore, by limiting the scope of such study to those books that also...