The problem with children’s literature….
It’s time for me to rant a little bit about Newberry Award books and about young adult literature in general. Thanks to Readable Feast and her recommendation of Welcome to Lizard Motel and Rick Riordan’s recent blog entry about Newberry Books.
About 15 years ago I got on a Newberry Award kick. I had 3 children and I was going to get serious about building our home library. Newberry books seemed like a good place to start. So start is what I did. I bought them, I read them, I attempted to read them aloud to my kids and while they loved being read to, they did not enjoy the books very much. A few years later, I tried to convince my oldest to start reading Newberry books – she refused. I mentioned this to my mother and her response was something like "Newberry books are for adults, not for children. That’s why you never enjoyed reading them when you were a kid either." Hmmm. I thought about this for a good long time. I wanted to argue with her but ultimately, I couldn’t do it.
Newberry books are fantastic. They’re well written. They’re often a wee bit daring. From an adult perspective, they teach kids some wonderful life lesson and what parent isn’t for a good life lesson? Unfortunately, they aren’t books kids want to read or enjoy reading.
Oh sure, some of you can argue with me that X was your favorite book as a child. Or Y was your child’s favorite book. But generally speaking, kids don’t love these books. Hand them Harry Potter and they’re much happier. Harry Potter is not Newberry material.
Welcome to the Lizard Motel does a great job of pointing out just what is wrong with these Newberry books and what’s wrong with the "problem" book that is so popular in American middle school classrooms. Rick Riordan and his son’s experience with the Newberry also do a good job of explaining the problem. American middle schools need to cut back on the "problem" book and the "Newberry book" reading list – I’m not saying wipe them out entirely, just cut back. Kids who love to read are finding themselves faced with books they hate. Kids who hate reading aren’t going to become readers by reading these things.
The problem with children’s literature…. Read More »
