Definitions of
Literature - What is Children's Literature? What is a Child?
Children's Literature
is a category of books the existence of which absolutely depends on supposed
relationships with a particular reading audience: children. (Lesnik-Oberstein 1999 p. 13)
When we use the label 'children's book' we are usually referring
to a book that is written for children by adults; though there are notable
exceptions, few published books are actually written by children. But this
crude definition starts to unravel if we take into account books that were not
intentionally written for children but have been published in full and abridged
versions on children's lists such as Jane Eyre or Oliver Twist.
Conversely, some texts produced in the first instance for
children, such as J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter sequence and Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, have been
marketed for an adult readership - complete with adult friendly covers. This
has led to a fashion in publishing for 'crossover books' - books that cross the
adult-child divide. The term may be a new one, but books which appeal to
readers of all ages have been around for a long time, Lewis Carroll's Adventures of Alice in Wonderland being
just one example. Certainly the books of childhood retain a special place in a
reader's heart and imagination.
It is significant that of the final 21 most loved books in the
BBC's Big Read (2003) no less than 11 were written for children, and others
such as Jane Eyre and Great Expectations have been
appropriated by young readers, thus confirming the view that the books we read
when young continue to be influential throughout life. Similarly, the top ten
'most precious books' in The Guardian
poll (March 1, 2007) included Harry Potter books in fourth place and Pullman's
trilogy in eighth place, equal with To
Kill a Mockingbird, a book which many teenagers read in school. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, another series which
has been appropriated to a younger readership, took second place and Jane Eyre was third. To suggest that
there are no differences in writing for adults and children however, may
diminish the importance of the child reader. Anne Thwaites in conversation with
Penelope Lively, at the Annual IBBY conference 2003 suggested that adults and
children differ in the ways that they read the same books; citing Philip
Pullman's The Amber Spyglass, she
suggested that while adults appreciated Philip Pullman's literary achievement
they were less likely to weep at the denouement than a teenage reader for whom
events were a lived experience. A similar point is made by Bettelheim when he
argues that different traditional tales resonate with readers at specific
points in their development. Red Riding
Hood, he argues, is an adolescent text, while Hansel and Gretel carries more meaning for the newly independent
child.
When student teachers begin to
consider the differences between writing for adults and children their concepts
of childhood are exposed. This may well be the first time they have considered
childhood as anything other than a natural state. When they express views such
as, 'children don't like black and white illustrations, they prefer full colour'
or 'children's literature shouldn't deal with the darker side of life and
themes such as bereavement are inappropriate', they are expressing particular
views about childhood. Implied within these statements are judgements about
what books can do for the reader.
The idea of childhood also has an impact on the way adults are
inclined to talk about children and their books. They are often referred to as
though they are an homogenous entity. This is epitomised in comments such as
'It's a great book but children won't like it'. If the same comment was made
about mature readers i.e. 'it's a great book but adults won't like it' it would
sound very silly. It would be natural to object that adults have varying tastes
and preferences and even if a book appealed to a small minority of readers we
would not dismiss it out of hand.
It is now widely acknowledged in historical, anthropological and
social studies that childhood is not a natural phenomenon related to stages of
intellectual development or physical growth, neither is the recognition of
children by adults contingent exclusively on physical appearance (Stainton
Rogers, 1992). Although theorists differ in their interpretations, it is
largely accepted that childhood is perceived differently at different times in
history and within different cultures, and that even within cultures
definitions and perceptions can vary. Childhood is therefore recognised within
a social context as a dynamic construct. (e.g. Mead and Wolfenstein 1955; Aries
1962; Jenks 1996; James and Prout, ,1997)
In the twenty-first century what it means to be a child in western
cultures is shifting. The idealised romantic image of the child as an innocent,
that has largely prevailed from the eighteenth century and is symbolised by
Joshua Reynolds' The Age of Innocence no
longer embraces what we know, understand or feel about children (if it ever
did). We do not live in an age of innocence and though it may be hard to
acknowledge, childhood is not an age of innocence either. When author Jacqueline
Wilson was asked whether her books are concerned with the loss of childhood
innocence, she observed that 'children act
like adults at an alarmingly early age' (Wilson cited by Geoghegan, 2008).
Commentators in disciplines across
social sciences, humanities and the arts have detected the shift. In her
critique of visual representations of childhood, Anne Higonnet (1998) writes:
Many people have
noticed how radically the image of childhood is changing, but this change is
virtually always understood as a distortion or even perversion of a true,
natural childhood. Such a negative interpretation depends, however, on a
conviction that the childhood we know is eternally and universally valid, a
conviction disproved by the evidence of history. The eighteenth century did not
discover a real childhood; it invented a childhood consonant with new values.
What happened in the eighteenth century is happening again, on the same order
of magnitude. Just as the invention of Romantic childhood caused anxiety,
resistance, and also brilliant innovation in its time, so is the reinvention of
childhood doing now (p. 193)
Many student teachers will not
have previously considered the possibility that 'childhood' is an idea that is
both synchronically and diachronically constructed and that it is a carrier of
social, moral, cultural values. By reflecting on images of childhood presented
in children's books from different periods, student teachers
develop insights into historical constructions of childhood.
Activity
This will need some notice before
carrying out.
Ask student teachers to select
(and re-read) a favourite book from childhood. They should also read (or
re-read) a book which is popular with children now. Ask them to compare these
two books, to identify any features that the texts have in common and the
differences, particularly those that reflect the period in which the books were
written. What depictions of childhood do
they find?
Taking the idea further, they
might read a pre-twentieth century book that continues to appeal to
contemporary children such as Treasure Island. Studying an adaptation
of the book, such as Disney's Treasure Planet will provide further
opportunity for looking at representations of childhood as the changes made in
the process of adaptation imply a particular view of the child.
Student teachers specialising in
English can extend this study by looking at texts that are no longer common
currency but were once written for and read by children. Iona and Peter Opie's Oxford Book of Children's Verse (1973)
for instance is an excellent survey of the development of children's poetry
from early beginnings to mid twentieth century and Morag Styles' historical
critique Fr om the Garden to the
Street
(1998) can be read as an illuminating companion text. Children's Literature in the 1890s and 1990s (1994) by Kimberley
Reynolds might also provide a starting point for stu dent teachers thinking about these issues.
An approach to children's literature that explores representations
of childhood not only enriches the stu dent teachers'
English/Literacy course but puts literature at the heart of professional and
education studies.
As well as affecting the
representation of the child as subject of children's books, the concept of
childhood also affects the way that children's literature is written.
Jacqueline Rose (1984) argues that:
Children's fiction rests
on the idea that there is a child who is simply there to be addressed and that
speaking to it must be simple. It is an idea whose innocent generality covers
up a multitude of sins... Peter Pan stands in our culture as a monument to the
impossibility of its own claims - that it represents the child, speaks to and
for children, addresses them as a group which is knowable and exists for the
book. (p. 1)
A significant number of writers
have written for both adults and children: Nina Bawden, Penelope Lively, Helen
Dunmore, Ian McEwan, Jill Paton Walsh, Roger McGough, to name a few. When
writers are asked to comment on how they adjust their writing for different
audiences various responses are given. At one extreme some claim that they do
not have a particular target audience, child or adult, in mind, while others
give carefully considered answers about the differences. Fred Inglis (1981)
takes issue with those who claim there are no differences in writing for adults
and children:
It is simply ignorant not to admit that
children's novelists have developed a set of conventions for their work. Such
development is a natural extension of the elaborate and implicit system of
rules, orthodoxies, improvisations, customs, forms and adjustments which
characterize the way any adult tells stories, or simply talks at length to
children. (p. 101)
Nicholas Tucker (1981) points out that while there is general
concordance with the view that writing for adults and children is different,
pinpointing the exact nature of the difference is not as easy as it seems. As
Nodelman (1996) illustrates with reference to Hemingway and Kipling, simplistic
statements such as 'children's texts use much simpler language than adult
texts' do not hold up to scrutiny. And yet there persists a widely held
assumption that sophisticated vocabulary is beyond the reach of young readers.
The view does not take account of the fact that children under the age of five
are not put off by Beatrix Potter's uncompromising vocabulary (e.g. 'soporific'
in The Tale of Peter Rabbit; 'affronted'
in The Tale of Tom Kitten) when the stories are read aloud
to them. In fact parents who have shared these books with their children will
attest to the fact that children assimilate words into their personal
vocabularies, delighting in their sounds. The National Curriculum does not
support a deficit view of children's abilities to cope with new language and
states that at KS1 children should have access to ch allenging stories and poems
Peter Hunt (1994) argues that implicit authorial control
is a characteristic marker of the discourse in children's fiction. This point
is developed by Barbara Wall (1991) in her thesis about the role of the
narrator in children's fiction. Writers, she claims, 'speak differently in
fiction when they are aware that they are addressing children... this is
translated sometimes subtly, sometimes obviously into the narrator's voice' (pp.
2-3).
An obvious example of authorial intrusion can be found in the
transferred storyteller mode employed by Enid Blyton in Five Go to Mystery
Moor:
Anne gazed out of her
bedroom window over the moor. It looked so peaceful and serene under the April
sun. No mystery about it now! 'All the same, it's a good name for you,'
said Anne. 'You're full of mystery and adventure, and your last adventure
waited for us to come and share it. I really think I'll call this adventure
"Five Go to Mystery Moor" '. It's a good name Anne. We'll call it that
too!
In this extract it is easy to see
that the reader is directed towards a specific response. In other instances
Blyton intrudes with a heavily didactic tone to comment on the behaviour of the
characters. John Stephens (1992) expands on the idea of power in point of view,
distinguishing between perceptual and conceptual points of view. The perceptual
point of view refers to the eyes through which the story is seen - this is
sometimes referred to as focalizing. During the narrative the focalisation may
shift many times from narrator to character. The conceptual point of view is
interpretation that readers are guided towards based on the ideological stance
of the focalizer. In
Exploring Children's Literature Gamble and Yates (2007) include a chapter
about narration and point of view with practical activities and critical
commentaries that stu dent teachers can work
through. Once they have grasped the idea that a power relationship between
author and reader is played out in the pages of a book, student teachers can
become attuned to the sophisticated and subtle ways in which this relationship
operates. By developing their own knowledge about this important aspect of text
they will be better placed to help their pupils understand the differences
between author, narrator and character and the ways in which viewpoint affects
readers' responses.
