When I visited a school not so long ago, a teacher told me of the father of a little girl of eleven who had a simple rule so far as reading was concerned: only bona fide classics would be allowed in the family home. All non-classics were banned. The result, of course, was that the child was utterly uninterested in reading. And who can blame her?
Terence Blacker: journalist and children's author in The Test of Time (1999) London: Waterstones Booksellers
Values are at the heart of the discussion about the relative merits of classic children's books. Children are often urged to read the classics, sometimes by parents who read them when they were younger, or by teachers keen to extend and enrich what they may perceive to be a limited reading repertoire. Some trainees may feel that classic texts are superior to those of more recent popular culture, and others may fail to see the relevance to modern readers. The National Curriculum requires that children have access to long established children's fiction and classic poetry. What do these texts have in common that allows them to have the accolade 'classic' emblazoned on the front cover? And is reading them 'good for the children'?
Trainees might draw up lists of their personal top ten classic books and compare them looking for shared characteristics. From their lists they can derive a rationale for the inclusion of classic literature in the curriculum. Referring to the National Curriculum and the NLS they might then investigate the values that are implied by the objectives and compare to the rationales that they have devised. For example the NLS framework Y4 T2 includes poems from different cultures and times within the recommended range. A corresponding objective says that pupils should be to taught to: identify clues which suggest poems are older, e.g. language use, vocabulary, archaic words. (Y4 T2 TL6) The emphasis in this objective is on the different uses of language that characterise some older texts.
Peter Hunt (1994) suggests that the children's classic is different from the adult classic in that it is always ' alive', passed down from one generation to the next, whereas adult 'classics' may survive only to be read by academics. And what do children think a classic text is? When Victor Watson asked a group of 10 year old children this question, one child offered, 'books written by dead people'. Watson suggests that this shows that children know that a classic book's popularity survives the age in which it is written. He goes on to write: "A characteristic of the classic children's story is its capacity to offer from within itself new meaning and fresh emphases while retaining its original integrity." In this sense, the notion of classic is tied in to re-writings and remakings through adaptation, illustration, dramatisation etc. This view of the classic text underpins the NLS which requires that children 'discuss the enduring appeal of established authors and classic texts. ( Y5 T1 t12).
Watson argues that classics are 'love stories': 'which appeal differently to both children and adults because they arise out of the love that can exist between them." Relationships between adults and children are characterised by the certainty that the relationship will change. The intimacy with a child is never an equal one because of the acute difference in understanding about life, death and the ephemeral nature of childhood. Children's classics arise out of the intimate spaces between adults and children. In this way classics continue to appeal to us because they capture the essence of the sensitive and problematic need that is central to family life." Perhaps this need is caught most successfully in stories that were told for 'real' children' ( e.g. Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, The Wind in the Willows and Winnie the Pooh).
Are the classics still relevant to children today? Liz Waterland planned a programme of introducing her class of 5-7 year old inner city children to classic literature. The books read included unabridged versions of Winnie-the-Pooh, Alice in Wonderland, The Wind in the Willows, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, A Christmas Carol, Black Beauty and The Secret Garden. The stories were read and then discussed in relation to the children's life experiences, e.g. Was Toad a goody if he kept telling lies? In assessing the value of the experience Liz Waterland writes:
"The first and greatest value is certainly the new worlds that were opened for them and the willingness with which they entered those worlds… Second comes the value of offering children books in their original form and language and the demands this makes on them. There is no doubt that their language was enriched and their understanding of the unfamiliar deepened… Third, I value the links the children have begun to forge with their literary roots. Books like Alice are part of a heritage that fewer children nowadays have access to. It is important that children should make connections when they hear people say, "He's a real Scrooge" or "God bless us every one… Lastly and perhaps most satisfying of all, there is the value that children themselves found in the books, and that led them to want to go on exploring the worlds they had entered. Many children found copies of the book I was reading and read along with me or at home."
Waterland's reflections remind us that when selecting books to read with children we should have a clear idea of the value that the texts bring to the reading experience. However, reviewing her list of selected classics also brings us back to the question of cultural capital. Whose heritage do these books belong to? Are some kinds of text privileged over other? Should picture books, television programmes and films be included in the classic repertoire? Are children given enough access to classic texts from other cultures including books in translation? Charles Sarland (1991) writing in support of popular texts is critical of the imperative for children to read canonical texts: "when pupils reject texts it may well not be because they do not understand them……Having understood, they then reject the text on experiential grounds, on ideological grounds, on grounds of lack of emotional satisfaction: because, in my shorthand, they do not find themselves in it." (p101)
Having reflected on values, childhood and literature, trainees will be well placed to deepen their understanding of reading response and to reflect on ways in which teacher's can intervene to support, challenge and enrich children's reading.
