Sharing Literature with Children (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Sharing Literature with Children Alethea K. Helbig Butler, Francelia , Sharing Literature with Children. New YorkDavid McKay Company, Inc., 1977. This collection of over one hundred fifty rhymes, verses, poems, tales, stories, plays, and essays is "designed for use in college classes in children's literature, as a source book in libraries and in elementary schools, and for parents who want to share great literature with their children." The compiler says that "the book offers a theory about children's literature that grows out of something we all have experienced and sensed intuitively-that the most deeply moving literature seems to center in certain basic symbolic themes, which keep recurring like the patterns in music." In line with this theory, the primary arrangement of the book is thematic, and within the thematic divisions, the material is arranged generically. The compiler utilized an eclectic approach for this anthology of literature for children, a method which rose out of her decade of teaching classes in children's literature at the University of Connecticut. She states that her "four criteria for selection. . . have been feeling, values, quality, and balance." She chose pieces which she felt move emotionally adults as well as children, which convey discernible moral and ethical values, which are "equally worth reading at ten and at fifty, a criterion suggested by CS. Lewis," and which represent a balance of "culture, ethnic group, and sex, as well as of genre and period." Last, the element of play in both literal and imaginative senses was an important consideration governing choice of readings. The five themes into which the selections are divided (which are not really themes, strictly speaking, but topics) are "Toys and Games," "Fools," "Masks and Shadows," "Sex Roles," and "Circles." Each section opens with an introduction in which the compiler provides background and comments on the unifying topic of the section and on some of the pieces in the section. Most selections are also preceded by brief notes. The readings from literature for children grouped by genre comprise the bulk of each section, while essays on the topic and selections, reading lists, and suggestions for activities wind up each section. The readings in "Toys and Games" involve the objects and activities which children use to teach themselves about the world. Included are folk rhymes of various sorts, a Punch and Judy play, The Velveteen Rabbit, selections from Winnie-the-Pooh and Pinocchio, and poems by such writers as Stevenson, Field, McCord, and Aldis. The section on "Fools," who are "like children in their first clumsy efforts in the adult world," presents examples of various kinds of foolish behavior from that arising out of greed in the Greek myth of "The Golden Touch" retold by Nathaniel Hawthorne through the bumbling misfortunes of simpletons in folktales and literary tales to the silliness of the limericks of Edward Lear and "Dinky" by Theodore Roethke. "Masks and Shadows" and "Sex Roles" both involve role playing, a more serious kind of play. Here are found the American Indian version of Cinderella, "Little Burnt-Face," "The Emperor's New Clothes" by Hans Christian Andersen, "The Master Maid," "Molly Whipple" retold by James Reeves, selections from Harriet the Spy and Julie of the Wolves, some biography, and poems. The last section, "Circles," is intended to bind all the themes together. Comprising "natural cycles such as birth and death and the changing of the seasons," it starts with the Greek myth of Demeter and Persephone as told by Edith Hamilton and ends with the old nonsense rhyme, "A Roundabout Turn" by Robert H. Charles. In between are found folk songs, biblical poetry, selections from The Little Prince and Charlotte's [End Page 8] Web, Gertrude Stein's The World is Round, and the first two chapters of . . .And Now Miguel. Ending the book is an afterword on fantasy written by the compiler and selections from the writings of the eminent authorities, Bruno Bettelheim, G.K. Chesterton, Clifton Fadiman, and J.R.R. Tolkien. Accompanying the text is a manual intended to provide helps of various sorts, among them a sample course syllabus, additional suggestions for class and individual participatory activities, suggestions for the kinds of speakers which might...