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[CCBC-Net] Some thoughts --
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From: Sheila A Welch <sheilawelch>
Date: Sun, 19 Jul 2009 00:22:50 -0500
Hello,
I hope to have the book, The Hidden Adult, in my hands soon so I can read Perry's ideas in full. As a child, I was an intense reader who loved certain books. When I taught school, I discovered a lot of picture books that I'd never seen. A bit later, as we raised our family, I had the wonderful experience of reading aloud to our children. Now, I write and illustrate stories (published in magazines), and books for kids. I've also reread many of my childhood favorites and thought about them from an adult perspective. I've missed reading some great books, I'm sure, but children's literature is an important part of my life.
I agree with a lot of what Perry has said during this on-line discussion. My thoughts have gone off on few related tangents.
Early in the history of children's literature, teaching (and preaching to) kids was its main purpose. The concept of reading for entertainment came later. Now, we seem to be returning to the past, and, as Perry has pointed out, books are being talked about for what they teach -- almost as if they are teaching tools. The idea of using real books, trade fiction, to teach reading -- or anything else -- is relatively new. Textbooks used to be the norm, and fiction was for pleasure or "outside" reading when I was growing up during the 50s and 60s. On the surface, reading Newbery winners in school as part of a structured class sounds great, but teaching kids about books can, I feel, be counter productive. I know I wouldn't have liked to study and get a test on E. Nesbit's The Enchanted Castle or Rawling's The Yearling when I was ten and eleven. But I was totally engaged in reading and loving those books. I worry that too much teaching and dissecting of novels for children might turn reading into just plain work. I would much prefer that books be read and possibly discussed in the school setting but in a very open ended way, leaving kids with a chance to mull over thought provoking stories. I am sure truly good teachers are doing this, but with the emphasis on test scores, I'm not sure there's enough time left for contemplation.
Although I realize this isn't quite what Perry is talking about . . .
As an author, I resent, to some extent, the way books are expected to provide positive role models for kids. This desire to have children's books represent an ideal world comes from . . . where? Parents? The media? Educators? (Maybe this explains the huge popularity of fantasy novels. Authors and their readers can avoid the "rules" of society and safety. I can't remember . . . does Harry Potter wear a protective helmet when he's whizzing around? I doubt that a character as violent as the man in The Underneath would ever make it to publication in a realistic novel.) I find myself wondering if I need to remove a few swear words from the realistic middle-grade novel manuscript I'm working on. Do I need to protect a ten-year-old from reading such words? I sincerely doubt that! He's probably heard all of those words plus more on the street, school bus, playground, even in the classroom or his own home. But will including this realistic bit of dialog prevent sales to schools and libraries? Probably. While working on another book, my editor insisted that the expression "geez" be eliminated. A different editor at another place was very nervous about references to Dungeons and Dragons, which my characters played with their father in the past. The book got published, but D&D isn't mentioned. So maybe it's partly the pressure from outside forces that influences authors of children's books. This pressure might be part of the reason authors insert that adult concept of a pure or innocent child-world into their work.
Okay, I'll try to get closer to the topic . . .
I appreciated Perry's comments about A Hole is to Dig. In my opinion, it is written and illustrated from an adult perspective and appreciated by adults. I've never known a young child who has gotten involved with that book. I'm looking forward to reading in The Hidden Adult Perry's comments on The Snowy Day. It was published in 1962, but I wasn't aware of it until 1971 when our first child was a toddler who adored listening to stories. There it was, in the library of a small Minnesota city, the perfect book for a small black boy who was surrounded by a lot of snow and a lot of white faces. I have a hard time seeing how Keats is manipulating kids in this simple story. Peter doesn't join the big boys in their snowball fight, but the implication is that he's figured out on his own that he's not old enough. He thinks the snowball will survive in his warm house, but this isn't so much a teaching moment as an opportunity for little kids to realize that Peter is making a mistake. Our son had this book memorized before he was three. I didn't find out that Keats was white until a few years later, which points toward another topic about authors writing outside their experience. I'm not going there
. . . it's getting late.
Sorry for rambling on, but it was fun thinking about these ideas.
Sheila Kelly Welch Author/Illustrator
On Sat, 18 Jul 2009 15:00:47 -0400 (EDT) Marcy Troy
<marcytroy at wideopenwest.com> writes:
>
>
> Perry,
>
> I have been reading about your book for several days and
> twirling your ideas around in my brain. Your ideas intrigue me, and
> I wish I could have read your book before posting, but I can't. So
> if my wonder is answered in your book, forgive me. As a relatively
> new teacher, I love to read picture books to my 4th and 5th graders.
> Oftentimes, we talk about the message. We also read many novels. If
> I am understanding your position, you feel that the embedding of a
> message in childrens literature is manipulation of the minds of
> children. Is this a correct statement about the message that you
> wish to convey in your book, The Hidden Adult ? If so, I would be
> interested to know why you think it is a bad thing.
>
> Not intending to be confrontational, just trying to understand,
>
> Marcy Troy
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: ccbc-net-request at lists.education.wisc.edu
> To: ccbc-net at lists.education.wisc.edu
> Sent: Saturday, July 18, 2009 12:00:02 PM GMT -06:00 US/Canada
> Central
> Subject: CCBC-Net Digest, Vol 48, Issue 17
>
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> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. Hidden Adult and Adult Agenda (Megan Schliesman)
> 2. Re: Hidden Adult and Adult Agenda (Perry Nodelman)
> 3. Re: Hidden Adult and Adult Agenda (Perry Nodelman)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2009 12:31:32 -0500
> From: Megan Schliesman <schliesman at education.wisc.edu>
> Subject: [CCBC-Net] Hidden Adult and Adult Agenda
> To: "ccbc-net, Subscribers of" <ccbc-net at lists.education.wisc.edu>
> Message-ID: <4A60B574.1070604 at education.wisc.edu>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> Perry Nodelman wrote:
>
> "I find myself having to admit that some of the things i like about
> those likeable texts are exactly the ways in which they work to
> manipulate their readers, including me."
>
> Perry, I'm curious about whether you see this manipulation as being
> conscious, or whether it has become subconsciously imbedded in our
> understanding of the genre, so that authors and artists may in fact
> be--at least at times--unwitting participants. Of course, we can
> all
> think of books where the manipulation is obvious rather than artful,
> but
> it is those artful books--the ones that manage to be well written,
> sometimes beautifully written, and child-centered--that I find
> myself
> thinking in terms of this idea of the manipulation of the child
> reader.
>
> Your discussion of A Very Special House by Maurice Sendak suggests a
>
> concsiousness to this. Would you say that is typically true?
>
> And what do others of you-- readers, and writers or
> illustrators--think
> about this?
>
> Megan
>
>
> --
> Megan Schliesman, Librarian
> Cooperative Children's Book Center
> School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison
> 600 N. Park Street, Room 4290
> Madison, WI 53706
>
> 608/262-9503
> schliesman at education.wisc.edu
>
> www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2009 16:13:26 -0500
> From: Perry Nodelman <perry_nodelman at shaw.ca>
> Subject: Re: [CCBC-Net] Hidden Adult and Adult Agenda
> To: Megan Schliesman <schliesman at education.wisc.edu>
> Cc: "ccbc-net, Subscribers of" <ccbc-net at lists.education.wisc.edu>
> Message-ID: <AD312A76-CACD-48BF-BABA-3357DD77136F at shaw.ca>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes
>
>
> On 17-Jul-09, at 12:31 PM, Megan Schliesman wrote:
> >
> >
> > Perry Nodelman wrote:
> >
> > "I find myself having to admit that some of the things i like
> about
> > those likeable texts are exactly the ways in which they work to
> > manipulate their readers, including me."
> >
> > Perry, I'm curious about whether you see this manipulation as
> being
> > conscious, or whether it has become subconsciously imbedded in our
>
> > understanding of the genre, so that authors and artists may in
> fact
> > be--at least at times--unwitting participants. Of course, we can
> all
> > think of books where the manipulation is obvious rather than
> artful,
> > but
> > it is those artful books--the ones that manage to be well written,
>
> > sometimes beautifully written, and child-centered--that I find
> > myself thinking in terms of this idea of the manipulation of the
>
> > child reader.
>
> Hmm. I'm wondering if it's a combination of both conscious
> manipulation and unconscious embedding.
>
> A lot of it is, of course, conscious. We do tend almost always to
>
> talk about children's books almost exclusively in terms of their
> pedagogical effects on children--and not always just in relation to
>
> their obvious didactic contents. For instance, we say things like,
>
> "It's a funny book, so it'll help children to develop a sense of
> humour," or, "it's a fun read, which will encourage children to
> think
> positively abut literacy" (University students I taught in
> children's
> lit courses were always saying things like that, and I hard to read
>
> then that a good enough reason for children to read a fun book would
>
> be simply that it was fun.).
>
> Also, most of our endless worrying about which books to keep out of
>
> children's hands is a concern with what the books might teach or how
>
> they might manipulate pliable young minds. Our current North
> American
> discourse about children and books is almost a hundred percent about
>
> how the books can or should or shouldn't or will or won't manipulate
>
> young readers. And when I say "our" here, i don't mean just
> adults--
> how often have you heard a child say something like, "It's a good
>
> book, but not for little kids younger than me because they might get
>
> nightmares from it." These children have already learned the
> acceptable way to talk about children's books--in terms of going
> through all the reasons for keeping them out of vulnerable younger
>
> hands before actually recommending them as safely okay.
>
> And in that context, then, it'd be almost impossible for anyone with
>
> much knowledge of children's books not to be engaged in unconscious
>
> thinking about how the books might effect or manipulate young
> readers,
> without any even awareness of doing so. From its beginning,
> children's literature has been defined as a literature which both
>
> educates young readers and, just as significantly, leaves things
> out--
> things children ought not to know about in order to preserve their
>
> childlikeness. If you know your business as a writer or editor or
>
> publisher or library purchaser, then, and you know what makes a
> children's book a children's book and what makes a saleable
> children's
> book, then you're probably unconsciously operating with ideas about
>
> children's literature based on your previous experience of it that
>
> emerge from those primal concerns. (Your own description, Megan, of
>
> books that "well written, sometimes beautifully written, and child-
> centered," for instance--how much are our idea of good writing in
>
> texts for young people tied up with ideas of suitable simplicity,
> and
> how much is "child-centered" understood in terms of how well the
> book
> evokes the right kind of utopian childhood?)
>
> As far as I can see, all the qualities characteristic or even just
>
> typical of texts for young people that I describe in The Hidden
> Adult
> emerge from and relate to efforts to manipulate of child readers,
> to
> create a safe version of childhood for children to imagine as being
>
> where they are and who they are. As I say in The Hidden Adult,
> children's literature is like the home that so many of its
> conventional texts insist is the best place for children to be--a
>
> haven protected against the dangers of the bigger world out there.
>
> And in our time, especially, childhood is increasingly understood by
>
> far too many parents, teachers, librarians, and others as a state of
>
> constantly being under siege by the dark forces of out there--and
>
> therefore, for many children nowadays, a prison of constant adult
>
> surveillance and never being very far away from the world-views of
> the
> Disney folk and their cronies in the kid's entertainment biz and
> never
> going outside to play unsupervised with your friends and without an
>
> appropriately age-rated video game in your hand. Childhood IS,
> more
> and more constantly, a state of being under authority and
> manipulation? And so children's literature is that, too?
>
> Cheerily on the edge of doom,
> Perry
> _____________
> Perry Nodelman
> http://pernodel.wordpress.com/
>
> Book Trailers:
> The Hidden Adult: Defining Children's Literature
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3t7JAfPQeA
> The Ghosthunters2: The Curse of the Evening Eye
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qapDE1Kwnis
> The Ghosthunters I: The Proof that Ghosts Exist
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sw0ow7oQV7k
>
>
>
> > Perry Nodelman wrote:
> >
> > "I find myself having to admit that some of the things i like
> about
> > those likeable texts are exactly the ways in which they work to
> > manipulate their readers, including me."
> >
> > Perry, I'm curious about whether you see this manipulation as
> being
> > conscious, or whether it has become subconsciously imbedded in our
>
> > understanding of the genre, so that authors and artists may in
> fact
> > be--at least at times--unwitting participants. Of course, we can
> all
> > think of books where the manipulation is obvious rather than
> artful,
> > but
> > it is those artful books--the ones that manage to be well written,
>
> > sometimes beautifully written, and child-centered--that I find
> myself
> > thinking in terms of this idea of the manipulation of the child
>
> > reader.
> >
> > Your discussion of A Very Special House by Maurice Sendak suggests
> a
> > concsiousness to this. Would you say that is typically true?
> >
> > And what do others of you-- readers, and writers or illustrators--
>
> > think
> > about this?
> >
> > Megan
> >
> >
> > --
> > Megan Schliesman, Librarian
> > Cooperative Children's Book Center
> > School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison
> > 600 N. Park Street, Room 4290
> > Madison, WI 53706
> >
> > 608/262-9503
> > schliesman at education.wisc.edu
> >
> > www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > CCBC-Net mailing list
> > CCBC-Net at lists.education.wisc.edu
> > Visit this link to read archives or to unsubscribe...
> > http://lists.education.wisc.edu/mailman/listinfo/ccbc-net
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2009 20:51:57 -0500
> From: Perry Nodelman <perry_nodelman at shaw.ca>
> Subject: Re: [CCBC-Net] Hidden Adult and Adult Agenda
> To: "ccbc-net, Subscribers of" <ccbc-net at lists.education.wisc.edu>
> Message-ID: <A5EC2055-AC4D-46A0-90E9-136A922A5FC4 at shaw.ca>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes
>
>
> Looking it over again, I see that last post of mine was pretty
> depressing--too depressing, maybe? Let me try to think of some
> ways
> in which all of children's literature always might not be
> dangerously
> counter-productive from beginning to end.
>
> So: it's characteristically and inherently manipulative. Well,
> yes,
> I think it is. But:
>
> First, in good texts for young people it's fun as a reader to be
> manipulated. The rich experience they offer of a childhood utopia
>
> where childhood innocence is always better than adult cynicism and
>
> pessimism and things always work out very well for the children we
>
> care about can be very, very satisfying to read about, for both
> children and adults. It's like chocolate, maybe--a delight to taste,
>
> but too much eaten too inattentively can make you sick (and tired of
>
> chocolate). And if you're controlling how much chocolate you eat,
>
> then why waste your chocolate ration on bad chocolate? Concentrate
> on
> the really tasty quality stuff--let yourself be manipulated
> ingeniously
>
> Second, the chocolate can still taste good even to those who know
> how
> sick it can make you, and who eat it carefully and warily. So,
> too,
> manipulative books; you can enjoy their attempts to manipulate
> just
> as much if you know how manipulative they are and actively work
> against letting them manipulate you too much. It can be a game
> with
> two equal players, not just one manipulater and one completely
> gullible manipulee. The more critical thinking the better, for
> human
> beings of all ages and stages. Down with thoughtless and
> unquestioning responses. Down, I say! Let children be wise
> enough to
> be able enjoy the same kind of nostalgia for what we identify as
> childlike innocence as adults do when they read children's books.
>
> Third, some of what we've been calling "manipulation" is really just
>
> plain old teaching, and some of what adults try to teach children is
>
> things they should legitimately be taught. Sometimes we let our
> faith
> in the wonderful individual freedom of each and all to get in the
> way
> if our sense of responsibility to help children find ways to cope
> with
> being alive, as children and in their future life as adults. It's an
>
> adult duty to manipulate children--i.e., to socialize them, to help
>
> them become capable of living in the culture they inhabit and
> understanding the world.
>
> And fourth, the really great children's books, i think, tend to
> undermine their own apparent manipulations, to say both what they
> seem
> to teach and its opposite. Like the books I admire that I named
>
> yesterday: Peter Rabbit is both about the bad things that happen
> when
> you disobey your mother and the satisfyingly heroic adventures you
> can
> have when you do. Charlotte's Web is about both enduring
> friendship
> and the ways affections come to an end (Fern's transfer of her
> attention away from Charlotte), about both triumphing over impending
>
> death and having to give in to it. And so on. Really good
> writers
> for children can always find a way of both seeming to meet the
> conventions and typical characteristics of children's books and at
> the
> same time defying them, or being ambivalent about them. I suspect
>
> that's why so many adults write essays about books like Peter Rabbit
>
> or Charlotte's Web or Where the Wild Things Are; they mean much more
>
> and are much less definite about it than they at first appear to, so
>
> that different readers can interpret them not only differently but
>
> often, oppositely. (I say more about this in the last section of
> The
> Hidden Adult.)
>
> So manipulation, yes. Bad for children and other human beings?
> Not
> necessarily.
>
> Stepping gingerly away from the brink of doom,
> Perry
>
> _____________
> Perry Nodelman
> http://pernodel.wordpress.com/
>
> Book Trailers:
> The Hidden Adult: Defining Children's Literature
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3t7JAfPQeA
> The Ghosthunters2: The Curse of the Evening Eye
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qapDE1Kwnis
> The Ghosthunters I: The Proof that Ghosts Exist
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sw0ow7oQV7k
>
> On 17-Jul-09, at 4:13 PM, Perry Nodelman wrote:
>
> > On 17-Jul-09, at 12:31 PM, Megan Schliesman wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >> Perry Nodelman wrote:
> >>
> >> "I find myself having to admit that some of the things i like
> about
> >> those likeable texts are exactly the ways in which they work to
> >> manipulate their readers, including me."
> >>
> >> Perry, I'm curious about whether you see this manipulation as
> being
> >> conscious, or whether it has become subconsciously imbedded in
> our
> >> understanding of the genre, so that authors and artists may in
> fact
> >> be--at least at times--unwitting participants. Of course, we
> can all
> >> think of books where the manipulation is obvious rather than
> artful,
> >> but
> >> it is those artful books--the ones that manage to be well
> written,
> >> sometimes beautifully written, and child-centered--that I find
> >> myself thinking in terms of this idea of the manipulation of the
> >> child reader.
> >
> > Hmm. I'm wondering if it's a combination of both conscious
> > manipulation and unconscious embedding.
> >
> > A lot of it is, of course, conscious. We do tend almost always
> to
> > talk about children's books almost exclusively in terms of their
> > pedagogical effects on children--and not always just in relation
> to
> > their obvious didactic contents. For instance, we say things
> like,
> > "It's a funny book, so it'll help children to develop a sense of
> > humour," or, "it's a fun read, which will encourage children to
> think
> > positively abut literacy" (University students I taught in
> children's
> > lit courses were always saying things like that, and I hard to
> read
> > then that a good enough reason for children to read a fun book
> would
> > be simply that it was fun.).
> >
> > Also, most of our endless worrying about which books to keep out
> of
> > children's hands is a concern with what the books might teach or
> how
> > they might manipulate pliable young minds. Our current North
> American
> > discourse about children and books is almost a hundred percent
> about
> > how the books can or should or shouldn't or will or won't
> manipulate
> > young readers. And when I say "our" here, i don't mean just
> adults--
> > how often have you heard a child say something like, "It's a good
> > book, but not for little kids younger than me because they might
> get
> > nightmares from it." These children have already learned the
> > acceptable way to talk about children's books--in terms of going
> > through all the reasons for keeping them out of vulnerable younger
>
> > hands before actually recommending them as safely okay.
> >
> > And in that context, then, it'd be almost impossible for anyone
> with
> > much knowledge of children's books not to be engaged in
> unconscious
> > thinking about how the books might effect or manipulate young
> readers,
> > without any even awareness of doing so. From its beginning,
> > children's literature has been defined as a literature which both
> > educates young readers and, just as significantly, leaves things
> out--
> > things children ought not to know about in order to preserve their
>
> > childlikeness. If you know your business as a writer or editor
> or
> > publisher or library purchaser, then, and you know what makes a
> > children's book a children's book and what makes a saleable
> children's
> > book, then you're probably unconsciously operating with ideas
> about
> > children's literature based on your previous experience of it that
>
> > emerge from those primal concerns. (Your own description, Megan,
> of
> > books that "well written, sometimes beautifully written, and
> child-
> > centered," for instance--how much are our idea of good writing in
> > texts for young people tied up with ideas of suitable simplicity,
> and
> > how much is "child-centered" understood in terms of how well the
> book
> > evokes the right kind of utopian childhood?)
> >
> > As far as I can see, all the qualities characteristic or even just
>
> > typical of texts for young people that I describe in The Hidden
> Adult
> > emerge from and relate to efforts to manipulate of child
> readers, to
> > create a safe version of childhood for children to imagine as
> being
> > where they are and who they are. As I say in The Hidden Adult,
> > children's literature is like the home that so many of its
> > conventional texts insist is the best place for children to be--a
> > haven protected against the dangers of the bigger world out there.
>
> > And in our time, especially, childhood is increasingly understood
> by
> > far too many parents, teachers, librarians, and others as a state
> of
> > constantly being under siege by the dark forces of out there--and
> > therefore, for many children nowadays, a prison of constant adult
> > surveillance and never being very far away from the world-views of
> the
> > Disney folk and their cronies in the kid's entertainment biz and
> never
> > going outside to play unsupervised with your friends and without
> an
> > appropriately age-rated video game in your hand. Childhood IS,
> more
> > and more constantly, a state of being under authority and
> > manipulation? And so children's literature is that, too?
> >
> > Cheerily on the edge of doom,
> > Perry
> > _____________
> > Perry Nodelman
> > http://pernodel.wordpress.com/
> >
> > Book Trailers:
> > The Hidden Adult: Defining Children's Literature
> > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3t7JAfPQeA
> > The Ghosthunters2: The Curse of the Evening Eye
> > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qapDE1Kwnis
> > The Ghosthunters I: The Proof that Ghosts Exist
> > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sw0ow7oQV7k
> >
> >
> >
> >> Perry Nodelman wrote:
> >>
> >> "I find myself having to admit that some of the things i like
> about
> >> those likeable texts are exactly the ways in which they work to
> >> manipulate their readers, including me."
> >>
> >> Perry, I'm curious about whether you see this manipulation as
> being
> >> conscious, or whether it has become subconsciously imbedded in
> our
> >> understanding of the genre, so that authors and artists may in
> fact
> >> be--at least at times--unwitting participants. Of course, we
> can all
> >> think of books where the manipulation is obvious rather than
> artful,
> >> but
> >> it is those artful books--the ones that manage to be well
> written,
> >> sometimes beautifully written, and child-centered--that I find
> myself
> >> thinking in terms of this idea of the manipulation of the child
> >> reader.
> >>
> >> Your discussion of A Very Special House by Maurice Sendak
> suggests a
> >> concsiousness to this. Would you say that is typically true?
> >>
> >> And what do others of you-- readers, and writers or
> illustrators--
> >> think
> >> about this?
> >>
> >> Megan
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> Megan Schliesman, Librarian
> >> Cooperative Children's Book Center
> >> School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison
> >> 600 N. Park Street, Room 4290
> >> Madison, WI 53706
> >>
> >> 608/262-9503
> >> schliesman at education.wisc.edu
> >>
> >> www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> CCBC-Net mailing list
> >> CCBC-Net at lists.education.wisc.edu
> >> Visit this link to read archives or to unsubscribe...
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> >
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> > CCBC-Net mailing list
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> > Visit this link to read archives or to unsubscribe...
> > http://lists.education.wisc.edu/mailman/listinfo/ccbc-net
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
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> Visit this link to read archives or to unsubscribe...
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>
> End of CCBC-Net Digest, Vol 48, Issue 17
> ****************************************
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Received on Sun 19 Jul 2009 12:22:50 AM CDT
Date: Sun, 19 Jul 2009 00:22:50 -0500
Hello,
I hope to have the book, The Hidden Adult, in my hands soon so I can read Perry's ideas in full. As a child, I was an intense reader who loved certain books. When I taught school, I discovered a lot of picture books that I'd never seen. A bit later, as we raised our family, I had the wonderful experience of reading aloud to our children. Now, I write and illustrate stories (published in magazines), and books for kids. I've also reread many of my childhood favorites and thought about them from an adult perspective. I've missed reading some great books, I'm sure, but children's literature is an important part of my life.
I agree with a lot of what Perry has said during this on-line discussion. My thoughts have gone off on few related tangents.
Early in the history of children's literature, teaching (and preaching to) kids was its main purpose. The concept of reading for entertainment came later. Now, we seem to be returning to the past, and, as Perry has pointed out, books are being talked about for what they teach -- almost as if they are teaching tools. The idea of using real books, trade fiction, to teach reading -- or anything else -- is relatively new. Textbooks used to be the norm, and fiction was for pleasure or "outside" reading when I was growing up during the 50s and 60s. On the surface, reading Newbery winners in school as part of a structured class sounds great, but teaching kids about books can, I feel, be counter productive. I know I wouldn't have liked to study and get a test on E. Nesbit's The Enchanted Castle or Rawling's The Yearling when I was ten and eleven. But I was totally engaged in reading and loving those books. I worry that too much teaching and dissecting of novels for children might turn reading into just plain work. I would much prefer that books be read and possibly discussed in the school setting but in a very open ended way, leaving kids with a chance to mull over thought provoking stories. I am sure truly good teachers are doing this, but with the emphasis on test scores, I'm not sure there's enough time left for contemplation.
Although I realize this isn't quite what Perry is talking about . . .
As an author, I resent, to some extent, the way books are expected to provide positive role models for kids. This desire to have children's books represent an ideal world comes from . . . where? Parents? The media? Educators? (Maybe this explains the huge popularity of fantasy novels. Authors and their readers can avoid the "rules" of society and safety. I can't remember . . . does Harry Potter wear a protective helmet when he's whizzing around? I doubt that a character as violent as the man in The Underneath would ever make it to publication in a realistic novel.) I find myself wondering if I need to remove a few swear words from the realistic middle-grade novel manuscript I'm working on. Do I need to protect a ten-year-old from reading such words? I sincerely doubt that! He's probably heard all of those words plus more on the street, school bus, playground, even in the classroom or his own home. But will including this realistic bit of dialog prevent sales to schools and libraries? Probably. While working on another book, my editor insisted that the expression "geez" be eliminated. A different editor at another place was very nervous about references to Dungeons and Dragons, which my characters played with their father in the past. The book got published, but D&D isn't mentioned. So maybe it's partly the pressure from outside forces that influences authors of children's books. This pressure might be part of the reason authors insert that adult concept of a pure or innocent child-world into their work.
Okay, I'll try to get closer to the topic . . .
I appreciated Perry's comments about A Hole is to Dig. In my opinion, it is written and illustrated from an adult perspective and appreciated by adults. I've never known a young child who has gotten involved with that book. I'm looking forward to reading in The Hidden Adult Perry's comments on The Snowy Day. It was published in 1962, but I wasn't aware of it until 1971 when our first child was a toddler who adored listening to stories. There it was, in the library of a small Minnesota city, the perfect book for a small black boy who was surrounded by a lot of snow and a lot of white faces. I have a hard time seeing how Keats is manipulating kids in this simple story. Peter doesn't join the big boys in their snowball fight, but the implication is that he's figured out on his own that he's not old enough. He thinks the snowball will survive in his warm house, but this isn't so much a teaching moment as an opportunity for little kids to realize that Peter is making a mistake. Our son had this book memorized before he was three. I didn't find out that Keats was white until a few years later, which points toward another topic about authors writing outside their experience. I'm not going there
. . . it's getting late.
Sorry for rambling on, but it was fun thinking about these ideas.
Sheila Kelly Welch Author/Illustrator
On Sat, 18 Jul 2009 15:00:47 -0400 (EDT) Marcy Troy
<marcytroy at wideopenwest.com> writes:
>
>
> Perry,
>
> I have been reading about your book for several days and
> twirling your ideas around in my brain. Your ideas intrigue me, and
> I wish I could have read your book before posting, but I can't. So
> if my wonder is answered in your book, forgive me. As a relatively
> new teacher, I love to read picture books to my 4th and 5th graders.
> Oftentimes, we talk about the message. We also read many novels. If
> I am understanding your position, you feel that the embedding of a
> message in childrens literature is manipulation of the minds of
> children. Is this a correct statement about the message that you
> wish to convey in your book, The Hidden Adult ? If so, I would be
> interested to know why you think it is a bad thing.
>
> Not intending to be confrontational, just trying to understand,
>
> Marcy Troy
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: ccbc-net-request at lists.education.wisc.edu
> To: ccbc-net at lists.education.wisc.edu
> Sent: Saturday, July 18, 2009 12:00:02 PM GMT -06:00 US/Canada
> Central
> Subject: CCBC-Net Digest, Vol 48, Issue 17
>
> Send CCBC-Net mailing list submissions to
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>
>
> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. Hidden Adult and Adult Agenda (Megan Schliesman)
> 2. Re: Hidden Adult and Adult Agenda (Perry Nodelman)
> 3. Re: Hidden Adult and Adult Agenda (Perry Nodelman)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2009 12:31:32 -0500
> From: Megan Schliesman <schliesman at education.wisc.edu>
> Subject: [CCBC-Net] Hidden Adult and Adult Agenda
> To: "ccbc-net, Subscribers of" <ccbc-net at lists.education.wisc.edu>
> Message-ID: <4A60B574.1070604 at education.wisc.edu>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> Perry Nodelman wrote:
>
> "I find myself having to admit that some of the things i like about
> those likeable texts are exactly the ways in which they work to
> manipulate their readers, including me."
>
> Perry, I'm curious about whether you see this manipulation as being
> conscious, or whether it has become subconsciously imbedded in our
> understanding of the genre, so that authors and artists may in fact
> be--at least at times--unwitting participants. Of course, we can
> all
> think of books where the manipulation is obvious rather than artful,
> but
> it is those artful books--the ones that manage to be well written,
> sometimes beautifully written, and child-centered--that I find
> myself
> thinking in terms of this idea of the manipulation of the child
> reader.
>
> Your discussion of A Very Special House by Maurice Sendak suggests a
>
> concsiousness to this. Would you say that is typically true?
>
> And what do others of you-- readers, and writers or
> illustrators--think
> about this?
>
> Megan
>
>
> --
> Megan Schliesman, Librarian
> Cooperative Children's Book Center
> School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison
> 600 N. Park Street, Room 4290
> Madison, WI 53706
>
> 608/262-9503
> schliesman at education.wisc.edu
>
> www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2009 16:13:26 -0500
> From: Perry Nodelman <perry_nodelman at shaw.ca>
> Subject: Re: [CCBC-Net] Hidden Adult and Adult Agenda
> To: Megan Schliesman <schliesman at education.wisc.edu>
> Cc: "ccbc-net, Subscribers of" <ccbc-net at lists.education.wisc.edu>
> Message-ID: <AD312A76-CACD-48BF-BABA-3357DD77136F at shaw.ca>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes
>
>
> On 17-Jul-09, at 12:31 PM, Megan Schliesman wrote:
> >
> >
> > Perry Nodelman wrote:
> >
> > "I find myself having to admit that some of the things i like
> about
> > those likeable texts are exactly the ways in which they work to
> > manipulate their readers, including me."
> >
> > Perry, I'm curious about whether you see this manipulation as
> being
> > conscious, or whether it has become subconsciously imbedded in our
>
> > understanding of the genre, so that authors and artists may in
> fact
> > be--at least at times--unwitting participants. Of course, we can
> all
> > think of books where the manipulation is obvious rather than
> artful,
> > but
> > it is those artful books--the ones that manage to be well written,
>
> > sometimes beautifully written, and child-centered--that I find
> > myself thinking in terms of this idea of the manipulation of the
>
> > child reader.
>
> Hmm. I'm wondering if it's a combination of both conscious
> manipulation and unconscious embedding.
>
> A lot of it is, of course, conscious. We do tend almost always to
>
> talk about children's books almost exclusively in terms of their
> pedagogical effects on children--and not always just in relation to
>
> their obvious didactic contents. For instance, we say things like,
>
> "It's a funny book, so it'll help children to develop a sense of
> humour," or, "it's a fun read, which will encourage children to
> think
> positively abut literacy" (University students I taught in
> children's
> lit courses were always saying things like that, and I hard to read
>
> then that a good enough reason for children to read a fun book would
>
> be simply that it was fun.).
>
> Also, most of our endless worrying about which books to keep out of
>
> children's hands is a concern with what the books might teach or how
>
> they might manipulate pliable young minds. Our current North
> American
> discourse about children and books is almost a hundred percent about
>
> how the books can or should or shouldn't or will or won't manipulate
>
> young readers. And when I say "our" here, i don't mean just
> adults--
> how often have you heard a child say something like, "It's a good
>
> book, but not for little kids younger than me because they might get
>
> nightmares from it." These children have already learned the
> acceptable way to talk about children's books--in terms of going
> through all the reasons for keeping them out of vulnerable younger
>
> hands before actually recommending them as safely okay.
>
> And in that context, then, it'd be almost impossible for anyone with
>
> much knowledge of children's books not to be engaged in unconscious
>
> thinking about how the books might effect or manipulate young
> readers,
> without any even awareness of doing so. From its beginning,
> children's literature has been defined as a literature which both
>
> educates young readers and, just as significantly, leaves things
> out--
> things children ought not to know about in order to preserve their
>
> childlikeness. If you know your business as a writer or editor or
>
> publisher or library purchaser, then, and you know what makes a
> children's book a children's book and what makes a saleable
> children's
> book, then you're probably unconsciously operating with ideas about
>
> children's literature based on your previous experience of it that
>
> emerge from those primal concerns. (Your own description, Megan, of
>
> books that "well written, sometimes beautifully written, and child-
> centered," for instance--how much are our idea of good writing in
>
> texts for young people tied up with ideas of suitable simplicity,
> and
> how much is "child-centered" understood in terms of how well the
> book
> evokes the right kind of utopian childhood?)
>
> As far as I can see, all the qualities characteristic or even just
>
> typical of texts for young people that I describe in The Hidden
> Adult
> emerge from and relate to efforts to manipulate of child readers,
> to
> create a safe version of childhood for children to imagine as being
>
> where they are and who they are. As I say in The Hidden Adult,
> children's literature is like the home that so many of its
> conventional texts insist is the best place for children to be--a
>
> haven protected against the dangers of the bigger world out there.
>
> And in our time, especially, childhood is increasingly understood by
>
> far too many parents, teachers, librarians, and others as a state of
>
> constantly being under siege by the dark forces of out there--and
>
> therefore, for many children nowadays, a prison of constant adult
>
> surveillance and never being very far away from the world-views of
> the
> Disney folk and their cronies in the kid's entertainment biz and
> never
> going outside to play unsupervised with your friends and without an
>
> appropriately age-rated video game in your hand. Childhood IS,
> more
> and more constantly, a state of being under authority and
> manipulation? And so children's literature is that, too?
>
> Cheerily on the edge of doom,
> Perry
> _____________
> Perry Nodelman
> http://pernodel.wordpress.com/
>
> Book Trailers:
> The Hidden Adult: Defining Children's Literature
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3t7JAfPQeA
> The Ghosthunters2: The Curse of the Evening Eye
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qapDE1Kwnis
> The Ghosthunters I: The Proof that Ghosts Exist
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sw0ow7oQV7k
>
>
>
> > Perry Nodelman wrote:
> >
> > "I find myself having to admit that some of the things i like
> about
> > those likeable texts are exactly the ways in which they work to
> > manipulate their readers, including me."
> >
> > Perry, I'm curious about whether you see this manipulation as
> being
> > conscious, or whether it has become subconsciously imbedded in our
>
> > understanding of the genre, so that authors and artists may in
> fact
> > be--at least at times--unwitting participants. Of course, we can
> all
> > think of books where the manipulation is obvious rather than
> artful,
> > but
> > it is those artful books--the ones that manage to be well written,
>
> > sometimes beautifully written, and child-centered--that I find
> myself
> > thinking in terms of this idea of the manipulation of the child
>
> > reader.
> >
> > Your discussion of A Very Special House by Maurice Sendak suggests
> a
> > concsiousness to this. Would you say that is typically true?
> >
> > And what do others of you-- readers, and writers or illustrators--
>
> > think
> > about this?
> >
> > Megan
> >
> >
> > --
> > Megan Schliesman, Librarian
> > Cooperative Children's Book Center
> > School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison
> > 600 N. Park Street, Room 4290
> > Madison, WI 53706
> >
> > 608/262-9503
> > schliesman at education.wisc.edu
> >
> > www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > CCBC-Net mailing list
> > CCBC-Net at lists.education.wisc.edu
> > Visit this link to read archives or to unsubscribe...
> > http://lists.education.wisc.edu/mailman/listinfo/ccbc-net
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2009 20:51:57 -0500
> From: Perry Nodelman <perry_nodelman at shaw.ca>
> Subject: Re: [CCBC-Net] Hidden Adult and Adult Agenda
> To: "ccbc-net, Subscribers of" <ccbc-net at lists.education.wisc.edu>
> Message-ID: <A5EC2055-AC4D-46A0-90E9-136A922A5FC4 at shaw.ca>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes
>
>
> Looking it over again, I see that last post of mine was pretty
> depressing--too depressing, maybe? Let me try to think of some
> ways
> in which all of children's literature always might not be
> dangerously
> counter-productive from beginning to end.
>
> So: it's characteristically and inherently manipulative. Well,
> yes,
> I think it is. But:
>
> First, in good texts for young people it's fun as a reader to be
> manipulated. The rich experience they offer of a childhood utopia
>
> where childhood innocence is always better than adult cynicism and
>
> pessimism and things always work out very well for the children we
>
> care about can be very, very satisfying to read about, for both
> children and adults. It's like chocolate, maybe--a delight to taste,
>
> but too much eaten too inattentively can make you sick (and tired of
>
> chocolate). And if you're controlling how much chocolate you eat,
>
> then why waste your chocolate ration on bad chocolate? Concentrate
> on
> the really tasty quality stuff--let yourself be manipulated
> ingeniously
>
> Second, the chocolate can still taste good even to those who know
> how
> sick it can make you, and who eat it carefully and warily. So,
> too,
> manipulative books; you can enjoy their attempts to manipulate
> just
> as much if you know how manipulative they are and actively work
> against letting them manipulate you too much. It can be a game
> with
> two equal players, not just one manipulater and one completely
> gullible manipulee. The more critical thinking the better, for
> human
> beings of all ages and stages. Down with thoughtless and
> unquestioning responses. Down, I say! Let children be wise
> enough to
> be able enjoy the same kind of nostalgia for what we identify as
> childlike innocence as adults do when they read children's books.
>
> Third, some of what we've been calling "manipulation" is really just
>
> plain old teaching, and some of what adults try to teach children is
>
> things they should legitimately be taught. Sometimes we let our
> faith
> in the wonderful individual freedom of each and all to get in the
> way
> if our sense of responsibility to help children find ways to cope
> with
> being alive, as children and in their future life as adults. It's an
>
> adult duty to manipulate children--i.e., to socialize them, to help
>
> them become capable of living in the culture they inhabit and
> understanding the world.
>
> And fourth, the really great children's books, i think, tend to
> undermine their own apparent manipulations, to say both what they
> seem
> to teach and its opposite. Like the books I admire that I named
>
> yesterday: Peter Rabbit is both about the bad things that happen
> when
> you disobey your mother and the satisfyingly heroic adventures you
> can
> have when you do. Charlotte's Web is about both enduring
> friendship
> and the ways affections come to an end (Fern's transfer of her
> attention away from Charlotte), about both triumphing over impending
>
> death and having to give in to it. And so on. Really good
> writers
> for children can always find a way of both seeming to meet the
> conventions and typical characteristics of children's books and at
> the
> same time defying them, or being ambivalent about them. I suspect
>
> that's why so many adults write essays about books like Peter Rabbit
>
> or Charlotte's Web or Where the Wild Things Are; they mean much more
>
> and are much less definite about it than they at first appear to, so
>
> that different readers can interpret them not only differently but
>
> often, oppositely. (I say more about this in the last section of
> The
> Hidden Adult.)
>
> So manipulation, yes. Bad for children and other human beings?
> Not
> necessarily.
>
> Stepping gingerly away from the brink of doom,
> Perry
>
> _____________
> Perry Nodelman
> http://pernodel.wordpress.com/
>
> Book Trailers:
> The Hidden Adult: Defining Children's Literature
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3t7JAfPQeA
> The Ghosthunters2: The Curse of the Evening Eye
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qapDE1Kwnis
> The Ghosthunters I: The Proof that Ghosts Exist
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sw0ow7oQV7k
>
> On 17-Jul-09, at 4:13 PM, Perry Nodelman wrote:
>
> > On 17-Jul-09, at 12:31 PM, Megan Schliesman wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >> Perry Nodelman wrote:
> >>
> >> "I find myself having to admit that some of the things i like
> about
> >> those likeable texts are exactly the ways in which they work to
> >> manipulate their readers, including me."
> >>
> >> Perry, I'm curious about whether you see this manipulation as
> being
> >> conscious, or whether it has become subconsciously imbedded in
> our
> >> understanding of the genre, so that authors and artists may in
> fact
> >> be--at least at times--unwitting participants. Of course, we
> can all
> >> think of books where the manipulation is obvious rather than
> artful,
> >> but
> >> it is those artful books--the ones that manage to be well
> written,
> >> sometimes beautifully written, and child-centered--that I find
> >> myself thinking in terms of this idea of the manipulation of the
> >> child reader.
> >
> > Hmm. I'm wondering if it's a combination of both conscious
> > manipulation and unconscious embedding.
> >
> > A lot of it is, of course, conscious. We do tend almost always
> to
> > talk about children's books almost exclusively in terms of their
> > pedagogical effects on children--and not always just in relation
> to
> > their obvious didactic contents. For instance, we say things
> like,
> > "It's a funny book, so it'll help children to develop a sense of
> > humour," or, "it's a fun read, which will encourage children to
> think
> > positively abut literacy" (University students I taught in
> children's
> > lit courses were always saying things like that, and I hard to
> read
> > then that a good enough reason for children to read a fun book
> would
> > be simply that it was fun.).
> >
> > Also, most of our endless worrying about which books to keep out
> of
> > children's hands is a concern with what the books might teach or
> how
> > they might manipulate pliable young minds. Our current North
> American
> > discourse about children and books is almost a hundred percent
> about
> > how the books can or should or shouldn't or will or won't
> manipulate
> > young readers. And when I say "our" here, i don't mean just
> adults--
> > how often have you heard a child say something like, "It's a good
> > book, but not for little kids younger than me because they might
> get
> > nightmares from it." These children have already learned the
> > acceptable way to talk about children's books--in terms of going
> > through all the reasons for keeping them out of vulnerable younger
>
> > hands before actually recommending them as safely okay.
> >
> > And in that context, then, it'd be almost impossible for anyone
> with
> > much knowledge of children's books not to be engaged in
> unconscious
> > thinking about how the books might effect or manipulate young
> readers,
> > without any even awareness of doing so. From its beginning,
> > children's literature has been defined as a literature which both
> > educates young readers and, just as significantly, leaves things
> out--
> > things children ought not to know about in order to preserve their
>
> > childlikeness. If you know your business as a writer or editor
> or
> > publisher or library purchaser, then, and you know what makes a
> > children's book a children's book and what makes a saleable
> children's
> > book, then you're probably unconsciously operating with ideas
> about
> > children's literature based on your previous experience of it that
>
> > emerge from those primal concerns. (Your own description, Megan,
> of
> > books that "well written, sometimes beautifully written, and
> child-
> > centered," for instance--how much are our idea of good writing in
> > texts for young people tied up with ideas of suitable simplicity,
> and
> > how much is "child-centered" understood in terms of how well the
> book
> > evokes the right kind of utopian childhood?)
> >
> > As far as I can see, all the qualities characteristic or even just
>
> > typical of texts for young people that I describe in The Hidden
> Adult
> > emerge from and relate to efforts to manipulate of child
> readers, to
> > create a safe version of childhood for children to imagine as
> being
> > where they are and who they are. As I say in The Hidden Adult,
> > children's literature is like the home that so many of its
> > conventional texts insist is the best place for children to be--a
> > haven protected against the dangers of the bigger world out there.
>
> > And in our time, especially, childhood is increasingly understood
> by
> > far too many parents, teachers, librarians, and others as a state
> of
> > constantly being under siege by the dark forces of out there--and
> > therefore, for many children nowadays, a prison of constant adult
> > surveillance and never being very far away from the world-views of
> the
> > Disney folk and their cronies in the kid's entertainment biz and
> never
> > going outside to play unsupervised with your friends and without
> an
> > appropriately age-rated video game in your hand. Childhood IS,
> more
> > and more constantly, a state of being under authority and
> > manipulation? And so children's literature is that, too?
> >
> > Cheerily on the edge of doom,
> > Perry
> > _____________
> > Perry Nodelman
> > http://pernodel.wordpress.com/
> >
> > Book Trailers:
> > The Hidden Adult: Defining Children's Literature
> > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3t7JAfPQeA
> > The Ghosthunters2: The Curse of the Evening Eye
> > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qapDE1Kwnis
> > The Ghosthunters I: The Proof that Ghosts Exist
> > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sw0ow7oQV7k
> >
> >
> >
> >> Perry Nodelman wrote:
> >>
> >> "I find myself having to admit that some of the things i like
> about
> >> those likeable texts are exactly the ways in which they work to
> >> manipulate their readers, including me."
> >>
> >> Perry, I'm curious about whether you see this manipulation as
> being
> >> conscious, or whether it has become subconsciously imbedded in
> our
> >> understanding of the genre, so that authors and artists may in
> fact
> >> be--at least at times--unwitting participants. Of course, we
> can all
> >> think of books where the manipulation is obvious rather than
> artful,
> >> but
> >> it is those artful books--the ones that manage to be well
> written,
> >> sometimes beautifully written, and child-centered--that I find
> myself
> >> thinking in terms of this idea of the manipulation of the child
> >> reader.
> >>
> >> Your discussion of A Very Special House by Maurice Sendak
> suggests a
> >> concsiousness to this. Would you say that is typically true?
> >>
> >> And what do others of you-- readers, and writers or
> illustrators--
> >> think
> >> about this?
> >>
> >> Megan
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> Megan Schliesman, Librarian
> >> Cooperative Children's Book Center
> >> School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison
> >> 600 N. Park Street, Room 4290
> >> Madison, WI 53706
> >>
> >> 608/262-9503
> >> schliesman at education.wisc.edu
> >>
> >> www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
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> >> Visit this link to read archives or to unsubscribe...
> >> http://lists.education.wisc.edu/mailman/listinfo/ccbc-net
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
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>
> End of CCBC-Net Digest, Vol 48, Issue 17
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Received on Sun 19 Jul 2009 12:22:50 AM CDT
