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From: Perry Nodelman <perry_nodelman>
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 2009 14:55:53 -0500
Sorry, I forgot to answer this question yesterday:
On 22-Jul-09, at 10:54 AM, Kristin Butcher wrote:
>
> However, I do have a question. I have not read your book, so this may
> very well be addressed there, but after all this discussion I wonder
> -- Can we as adults write anything or draw anything that doesn't
> contain the hidden adult?
I suspect the answer is no, we can't. We are who we are, and our words express who we are whether we want them to or not. If nothing else, they speak of the assumptions of the time and place we live in and so take for granted that we don't stop to to consider their actual merits. And in writing for children, we can imagine ourselves to be accessing something childlike in ourselves as we do it--but since we're still the ones who are doing that imagining, what we imagine is inevitably inflected with our adult view of what we recall, our current understanding of it in the light of later experience. For successful writers, inevitably, that later experience includes a knowledge of what works as children's literature--what specific shapings and formulations of our childhood memories will sell in the current world of books for young people--to an editor, to a librarian, to a parent, even, eventually, to a child or two. However accurate, memories that too far transcended the conventions of this kind of writing as currently understood would not, I'm convinced, find a market or an audience as a text for young people.
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
Received on Thu 23 Jul 2009 02:55:53 PM CDT
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 2009 14:55:53 -0500
Sorry, I forgot to answer this question yesterday:
On 22-Jul-09, at 10:54 AM, Kristin Butcher wrote:
>
> However, I do have a question. I have not read your book, so this may
> very well be addressed there, but after all this discussion I wonder
> -- Can we as adults write anything or draw anything that doesn't
> contain the hidden adult?
I suspect the answer is no, we can't. We are who we are, and our words express who we are whether we want them to or not. If nothing else, they speak of the assumptions of the time and place we live in and so take for granted that we don't stop to to consider their actual merits. And in writing for children, we can imagine ourselves to be accessing something childlike in ourselves as we do it--but since we're still the ones who are doing that imagining, what we imagine is inevitably inflected with our adult view of what we recall, our current understanding of it in the light of later experience. For successful writers, inevitably, that later experience includes a knowledge of what works as children's literature--what specific shapings and formulations of our childhood memories will sell in the current world of books for young people--to an editor, to a librarian, to a parent, even, eventually, to a child or two. However accurate, memories that too far transcended the conventions of this kind of writing as currently understood would not, I'm convinced, find a market or an audience as a text for young people.
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
Received on Thu 23 Jul 2009 02:55:53 PM CDT
