From: HUMMINGRK at aol.com <HUMMINGRK>
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1998 12:39:12 EDT

In a message dated 98 14:04:06 EDT, Marc Aronson wrote:

<< I think the books that are pushing at the linear form, either in
 their narrative structure or in their use of art and text, are trying to
 find a meeting place for these two kinds of realism. They want to be true
 to the disjunctive, fractured, non-continuous world of experience. Yet they
 want to find an inner narrative logic. Those that are able to do this are a
 true modern art -- an art of modern times. The discomfort we feel with them
 is our own anxiety about modernity, not their obscurity. His comparison of nonlinear forms of literature to modern art makes so much sense. Just as art in an unstructured form opens up new avenues of creative thinking in the observer, nonlinear forms of writing allow readers to develop more individual interpretations of stories. It may be more of a stretch for some readers, but a healthy stretch in the long run... That's not to say that a good old fashioned story with a plot will ever go out of style. (Do realistic landscapes ever really loose their popularity?) Nonlinear writing just adds variety and interest to the field of children's literature.

I was also glad that someone mentioned the Magic School Bus books. The children's nonfiction genre has made tremendous use of this more modern form: the Eyewitness books (DK) and Kids Discover magazines are other examples. Readers of nonfiction can browse at their own pace, delving more deeply into information that fascinates while skimming sections of lesser interest. The layouts and artwork pull in children used to the visual stimulation of TVs
(and remote control flipping!).

Lee Sullivan Hill, writer hummingrk at aol.com
Received on Tue 06 Oct 1998 11:39:12 AM CDT