Reviewed by: Child and Story: The Literary Connection Tony Manna (bio) Vandergrift, Kay E. Child and Story: The Literary Connection. New York: Neal-Schuman Publishers, 1980. 340pp. $14.95. There has never been a more appropriate time to consider the arguments Kay E. Vandergrift presents in her lucid and comprehensive examination of the nature and value of literature and the discoveries children make when effectively led into the center of story. As it turns out, the child's connection with literature does not fare well in an era, such as ours, when, as a result of the schools' struggle to identify fundamental skills and knowledge, the literary connection is frequently reduced to a cursory recitation of the plot, or, as Dr. Vandergrift points out with alarm, to a treatment of the text which fragments it for the purpose of instilling decoding skills. In light of the present need to justify and defend the essential role of story in the lives of children, Child and Story is a timely and convincing analysis which abounds with reminders of how story works as well as how it can work to engender a sense of what it means to be fully human, fully alive. Central to Vandergrift's study is a two-fold, integrated consciousness astutely reflected in the structure of Child and Story. On the one hand, she maintains the sensibility of a knowledgeable critic aware of the characteristics and functions of children's literature as expressive art, convinced that the best of what we can offer children is as powerful, rich, and diverse a source of insight and discovery as is the literature written for and experienced by adults. On the other hand, she is a believable and enthusiastic educator whose respect for the child's capacity to perceive, with increasing sophistication, the deepest aspects of story, stems from her experience as a teacher of children and a school librarian and administrator. In either case, she writes with conviction and candor in an informal, conversational style, complementing the insights of the scholar with abundant examples of real children engaged in story experience. Thus, she translates into very accessible classroom practices the suggestions she offers for how to stimulate children to interpret and evaluate what they read in order to enhance enjoyment. Vandergrift organizes her material into a cumulative, sequential pattern with each of the book's ten chapters evolving out of and supported by the ideas which precede it. Initially, she focuses on the intrinsic structural elements underlying story with particular attention to realism, romance, and "fancy," the latter term preferred to "fantasy," she points out, in order to distance it from the psychological implications of the word. "Story as Literary Form," Chapter 2, is an overture to her subsequent treatment of the nature and purpose of literary criticism. In an attempt to arrange various types of narrative fiction into a manageable, albeit debatable, schema so that teachers can plan a sensible literature program, aware of the aesthetic principles essential for an intelligent involvement in what is read or told, Vandergrift distinguishes three basic approaches to story (realism, romance, and fancy) from four basic modes of story (romance, tragedy, satire/irony, and comedy). In the first instance, she categorizes fiction according to "the relationship between the elements of the story world and the facts of the actual world," and in the second, supported by Northrop Frye, according to the possible patterns story events can take. "Critical Theory and Story," Chapter 3, "The Elements of Story," Chapter 5, and "Compositional Elements and Genres: A Matrix," Chapter 6, are amplifications of an underlying premise which is at the very center of Child and Story: that the developing awareness of how literature works is in direct proportion to the quality of personal meaning and satisfaction derived from the literary connection. "The aim of criticism," Vandergrift writes, "is to increase a reader's capacity to receive and respond to works of literature, to sharpen perceptions by pointing to literary elements and implications that might not otherwise be seen, and, through these means, to enhance enjoyment." The ways in which those who work with children can make that possible, in light of the nature of story and...