Back to discussing how depressing some kids books are (see our summer reading discussion from July 18), LIS News today points to a NY Times piece on Why Teachers Love Depressing Books. It discusses Barbara Feinberg's Welcome to Lizard Motel: Children, Stories, and the Mystery of Making Things Up, which I have sitting here on my pile of books to read soon.
From the article:
An avid reader growing up, I decided that there were two types of children's books: call it ''Little Women'' versus ''Phantom Tollbooth.'' The first type was usually foisted on you by nostalgic grown-ups. These were books populated by snivelers and goody-two-shoes, the most saintly of whom were sure to die in some tediously drawn-out scene. When the characters weren't dying or performing acts of charity or thawing the hearts of mean old gentlemen, they mostly just hung around the house, thinking about how they felt about their relatives.
...
Nevertheless, many kids do love these books. Perhaps they make certain readers, the ones who've grown up too fast, feel less alone and impart to others, the ones too eager to grow up, a frisson of the ''serious.'' The latter might well become teachers who insist that kids read books that make them cry. But there is no chemistry more subtle and combustible than the matching of reader with book; it just can't be standardized. Pair a ''Phantom Tollbooth'' kid with ''Little Women'' and the results will stink. You have to experiment until you get it right: that's the only formula for making a lifelong reader.Posted by Emily at August 21, 2004 07:46 AM