Directions in Children's Literature; 6; The Literary Experience of Children with Edith Stoll

it's been directions in children's literature riverside radio debut are they are a new york presents the sixth in a series of twelve programs with richard harris poet and teacher and leading authorities in the field of children's literature <unk> guest at this time is edith stowe who discusses the literary experience of children this is richard lewis and i haven't needed a style who is an associate professor of one hundred education at hofstra university as well as being the general editor of carousel books which is being published by senior random house and that needs to stop and i shall be discussing other literary experience of children but we'll be discussing a pretty much from the standpoint of mesa stalls relationship as an editor of producing books for children and i'd like to begin today's

program by reading a book which is yet to be published it will be published under the carousel label which is for very young children and i think it's a very unusual book and i'd like to sort of just read the whole book first i and then we use this as a jumping off point for discussions the name of the book is called send the poems and it was written by george mendoza he was a bully who went down to the edge of the sea and wrote each day of poem on the sand and the sand near the edge of the sea on monday the first day of the week he wrote a poem the first poem to speak if i were to see i wouldn't want a scot to cover me i would just want to be i would just wanted the nc came and washed away the next day was tuesday the second day of the week and boy came to write

his second home on the sand we at the edge of the sea how did you begin with a drop of rain or from the angels cheer c came and washed his poem away when wednesday cantor was the third day of the week and the c waited for the boy to speak as rich as the son of the sea have a son sleep came and washed away on the first day it was thursday and the sea was gray slate and dark is bar see which is c which is riding on waves we would be hiking with a hunting arcades and the sea came who watched his poem away the fifth day friday splashed with some ice or c spider listening at the border show what did he hear kenya tell can you tell next came

saturday sixties past we've seen like wings want to fly foxes birds that sort of the sky and the sea came and washed his own way the last day sunday he went to the agency to write a poem on the sand i understand you the agency he wants to ship as it slipped off the horizon was it's one of the sea to fit into a bottle or c waited at the edge of a sand to watch his palm away but he turned without the poem today i think it's a very very lovely scripts for a book which i'd like you stole to perhaps describe to us is it's a picture book or is this a of a book with a tax that is going to be illustrated with pictures and i think that that's such an interesting question because i suppose any children's book

really depends upon it as well as text and the artist always important in a relationship between the art and the text is really significant and so that to say that the art and the text are related is is sort of an obvious statement however i think that we care very very much about the visual experience as well as the terrible experience in these books and we try to find artists who were particularly suited to do that particular book it froberg is illustrating this book and she's a painter and a very beautiful painting she's worked with joy and he asked the us to consider her because she has a very special affinity for his work and so that the book that evolves i think isn't an art form in itself with in this particular case both words and art have almost equally important in the totality of the of the book intended look citizens well in

the books it you're doing i'm in terms of all for discussing to the literary experience of children i we for the program again we began talking about the various categories in which you are very interested in that feeling with books which in a sense although her experience of children and i'm wondering you describe some of those categories that you haven't won in terms of producing books for it and i think we're consuming oh one dimension of our concern is literary type a variety of literary types i think that there are a lot of books on the market that are are falling in the area fantasy i think we have great strengths in fantasy i think there are some wax a cab out for the reader this peculiar who is the youngster in the first grade classroom and i went out that we've tried for example to deal with adventure and under the category of adventure we have a real life adventure story may see in the mountain

lion written by iris dement and this is a man and animal against animal highly plotted with a strong storyline and quick action and the strength of that book is the action an apartment that the writing is very nice that we have another kind of adventure story which i think is more commonly associated with adventure stories for the very young where there is not a strong plotted line citizen can she goes fishing this story came to us from hawaii and it is a one story the language patterns are very lovely but the this is the plot this is rather weak it is just a story of a little boy he was going fishing and lovely human interest things that can happen so there's an emotional story line that we have an autobiography written by a seven year old korean child this book and generals who was written by randy levine qingdao who was a teacher of this classic dictated her story around he

recorded and then developed it through are deciduous were doing what you know must be done to transform real experience into a season going to cause a virtual image and it is a very beautiful art booked now and this is the autobiography of a little girl so it's a literary type that you see each book has many dimensions tight is not its only committed to this and jungle sue is a very heartwarming story of this korean child is also the story not only of all children who have no parents but of all children who at one time and all of the most most children at some point go away from here so it's this feeling of belonging which is kind of universal before you go on any further i just i would like to get back to send poems of the us that i just read for a minute and ask you what were you trying to or what are you trying to do with a book of this type ever was what guess what categories within your own frame of reference is this actually fail i felt very strongly that most of the

material for used in the schools in the literature program for youngsters i really did not recognize the dignity the perception and eligibility of seven year olds and we have felt as i know you have that very young children are capable of very deep the static experiences we know that they are concerned about all things adults are concerned about and that they bring a wide range of perception they may not have great let a vocabulary facility but they have great feeling and that was our notion that this palm was a very beautiful anesthetic experience which children would love and that we believe they needed this kind of exposure that they had been perhaps i too much of the chapter that's how you know this must a violation of what poetic

language is even in some materials used in schools you know i was very interested in one particular aspect of this and mustn't saying it's a nice piece of derogatory way there were certain lines are repeated a number of times over and over again with him the whole text and i'm wondering in your terms of a killer expensive children whether you feel that this is something that is important for children that they must have certain basic things repeated in order to make it perhaps more visually clear from the language for calm but the rhythm itself as a way of oh perhaps a way of almost hypnotize them into the literary qualities of that work i think reputation as a perfectly beautiful and outlet that literary device and of course the reading teacher the teacher concerned with teaching beginning reading uses repetition because this is a helpful for you know for that in and reading

instruction and i suppose i have felt that there are so many so many ways of using a reputation in a way that is aesthetically right that we do not have to do that look look kind of thing and i didn't write this the poet wrote it i felt he found his repetition had special meaning for the pomp and you as a poet would probably you know i guess one i agree completely that repetition is terribly important what i'm i'm just personally curious about is set in a number of books for children one finds this device use quite often and arm it i feel that it's often made in certain books but i was wondering if there was a conscious attempt to make this have to put in repetition in this particular home itself was this something that was just naturally there are no jobs did not write this poem for minor does this poem because he had to write in and he brought it to me with other things with ice and how lovely first grade is when lance we're seeing now you mentioned to me that

that the whole series will be a series which the children themselves will read in other words it that teachers will sit down with them and read it to them that this would be something i am perhaps will be new innovations in many ways that that you will be producing votes that will be completely read by the children themselves could depress common morgan wright i suppose one way of identifying these books is to say their supplementary literary line of books to be used in the classroom are they could be used to individualize breeding programs but they're primarily designed for the youngster who has just begun to learning to read and i have to defend that he's just begun to break the code and there's a great need for materials youngsters can read when they start to read and i felt there was a great need for materials that made some sense to the answers and materials they would want to

read and so a particular challenge of these books and part of i think the excitement of it was not only finding a variety of challenging kinds of content but in developing language patterns and a kind of language which is not i think good or are choppy but quite natural i i think that there is a new kind of riding enriching which is natural and write and very simple williams gets back to the tv the idea that when children talk to each other of course they took the most natural way one could could ever conceive of any sort of sophisticated preconceived notions about how they should speak to each other they simply talk to each other and it really seems very natural that books for children should definitely in some way employee and naturalists and they'll use of language that is very similar partisan way children talk to each other and i think by themselves i'd like you to continue if you could again some of these categories that you feel

all important in the whole realm in the whole spirit of the litter experience of tune and we add think humor is an important ally tim minchin hear and we have one book of fantasy work week so far we've as i say felt that them that they were good fantasy books on the market that this is a rollicking frolicking talking the story about hippopotamus who had guns then we have another dimension to humor we have a folktale to many in my house which is the human dilemma of the you know the old complaining person it is in the same folktale well you know the scottish jail its election ticket which is different art and then so that we feel that there are different levels and kinds of moods of humor just as they are different levels and kinds of wounds of poetry the sand palms is one of our that is i think i'm most poetic

pieces and we have a poetry and prose this sunday in which is a child's perception and then a collection of poems for children to read themselves which includes some that are kind of fun not necessarily great poems as well as very good poem but it's the variety there in the exposure to many kinds of poetic experiences that concerned us are we have a certain number of books that deal with explosive two rewriting and here we allowed the purpose of the book to dictate the form to chest our written about tools and here we use language is very simple the illustrations are very explicit and very precisely a less ames did the illustration and they had to be very accurate authenticity accuracy authority has to prevail in any exposure to rip and it dies and this means of course that you we didn't we just wouldn't consider calling

up fish away all our way our fish because a vocabulary list square words must be done and our astronaut squaring off with your reader and this child you've mentioned before is very important to us the child himself will that we have to speak directly to him and not to any intermediary not to but i've grown up who buys a book for a child because he believes the child would like it and we've tried very hard to avoid projecting an offender sized adult world on to the child most of the people involved in this line work with children and know them very well and we we feel that there is kind of a director's to youngsters that comes across works for example we know they're very concerned about that say things like unemployment and we have one bottle i gatti lost his job now our problem there was to keep the human element and lives it would not become an economics track because it isn't a book but we know that kids are concerned and just as you said that they speak directly

they also do certain things that the artist who was joseph julian ed koch so beautifully academy terribly worried and still be playing ball and still be smiling and it's this wonderful complexity of their responses along with a simplicity a setting that the art is caught very well and beautifully in that book we have a story which is another real isn't store a realistic story i would another problem story of call street dog that city children who adopt a stray dog and the dog catcher takes and why this was a story with a negro protests protagonist and here i have felt i guess other people have to that negro children have not been illustrated honestly and many books and that's because all this is so new so we asked an increased lau who was a wonderful negro painter and in what's cricket to illustrate this book and it was a very marvelous experience because it is a very true book a negro children are very marvelous in this book a lot and it is a world that is well you have to

see that the south is a very touching world that he's created but you see the problem i suppose the notion is that there's no de a sex match at the most it's fantasy that problems have to be solved and as in the world of peanuts as the deer ticks and the child solves a problem or gets help in solving it or recognizes that it cannot be sold and his attitudes mostly just in a scope or interested in the book in the book you mention month it lost a job what was the critical of the storyline at what actually happens in the book which are you know that the reality of the charles world and perhaps the fact that there are some books in fact many books which don't meet this reality that don't talk about the reality of a few of the child's world i'm does the book of this type are one week with a child

my dad he loves jeff dodes does the trial actually get a feeling for the reality of losing a job i think yes i think children are worried about a great many things there are many children even the children of people who seem very well established do worry about the possibility of getting losing his job and in this particular book the the father has lost his job here we had to consider many factories big for example it couldn't be a factory closing down because of the whole community would be affected and we met this week of mitigate the power of the story it was a small business in another child's father lost his job to mike's father loses his job but the story here is really how the youngsters concerned about it and what he tries to do about it he tries to get poppa job at sea that would be run the right popeye has an ego but a the party

of the problem is solved and while it isn't attract really it isn't a how to get your daddy a job sort of book it does deal with some of the many kinds of things that people who are fairly healthy do when they're faced as a family with an unplanned life goes on the game goes on in the street the sun is shining and you bake cakes for the neighbor and it all things that that should go on a while the subterranean concerned is there seemed to be gathering that the subject of a new book on terror image based upon the very basic needs are in terms which are other words that you are going along law in which you feel that children had certain fears that have certain curiosities they have rights even certain wonderment about that law and what you're trying to do is find a series of books that will in some way fill these gaps there were these experiences in other words again

making a literary experience from the experience of children no my question that follows from this is how do you find the particular gaps so to speak that exist in these air areas of the children's world on this is again something that grows out of your teaching with children is is something that grows out of you're looking back at your own childhood how exactly do you come to the point where you can say well i'll children always have a feeling of fear perhaps when they're dead in his jail i mean how do we get to that point i suppose bad days something called professional knowledge lies behind this there has been as you know research done in self concept but you're still in good many other people are i think we do know there's a lot we don't know but i think we do know a lot about the emotional life of the first crater we may not know as much as we will know in a few years about his cognitive development were working on that but i think we do now about the fx who needs a human states ah i

don't really can see these books as badly a therapeutic light as it is in a sense because i think the whole literary experience is that are many faceted wine and a catharsis in itself of like a candy doesn't but i think that our we you are our work with teachers indicates what materials they feel i needed that teaches don't always know precisely what it is they have a general feeling is my work with children and my knowledge of books used in the classroom that made me feel we needed books that good deal with all kinds of situations not only problem will this is getting a little bit away from your editorial capacities but he knew working with young people who are eventually going to be teachers how do you approach say the literary life of children in terms of young people or adults and so on and you get them turned to two in a sense works the same way you are working from an

editorial basis i think this is very interesting because i think most of the children's literature student students i've taught have been juniors in college and so just coming into the education program in very often this is their first education course and some of these students come with a good liberal arts background in literature or have known books is children or read them to younger sisters about that's a good many of the students come with a rather precious approach now i love beatrix potter and i loved winnie the pooh but this is not the beginning in the end of children's literature and some students do come with this feeling that it is now in some cases where oh we've been able to do this we did something pretty exciting i think some of our students have elected to work with disadvantaged children in some of the programs that schools near hofstra and when they started the students about well i have to do is pick some books and go and we'd get a

child i'd sit down and read this book to this job because they found that it wasn't quite that easy you've dealt with this on another program right now but that you had to do a great deal of business before you could take a book and a job and bring them together right now as they worked with youngsters they discovered certain things i think that i mentioned to you that the three books that were most loved by these youngsters who had never had books in their lives before we send x where the wild things are the three sally's and curious joy which is very exciting because i think because it does indicate which you your workers indicated their children respond to quality so one way of helping students is to involve them in the actual experience of sharing books with children another is to urge them to read very very widely to extend beyond their limitations i think the development of taste on any level is a slow careful business i don't think you are affected as a teacher if you lecture about what you prefer too much you have to do some of this but that the development of taste is a long slow

process of exposure and personal involvement you can get people to do things and review my my own experience with young people in terms of their teaching everything on the teach children has been that many of them have never really experienced literature per se and because of this it's very difficult them to go on to the castle in and read a book with the fact of getting children to respond to the experience of creature and i have found that that one important way in getting perhaps has never experienced a lot of it is just a word you've said farewell torch slowly into development perhaps of taste to work slowly in the area of getting them to release respond to one line in a poem say gee that's interesting or isn't that mortals how that really works or perhaps saying it's a beautiful poem i think once we get to that point we are getting students all are aware of a

lot of flak but literature is a living thing which uses much alive for their own particular age group as it is for four of a seven year old first grader i am it's very exciting sort of books that you are putting out in a sense that you are attempting to bring children's books at an early age which are very much alive oliver much a part of their existence and i think that certainly there's been a tremendous gap in many areas in this way what my own office and seven on friday time is is slowly crept away here so i'd like to thank you very much for hearing on this program and i think in conclusion i would just like to say that you hit upon one particular word which is a favorite mahler particularly in terms of children's literature and that is that the word of quality i think that that we can't have enough of quality in terms of children's literature and certainly in terms of bringing the litter experience close as children the only way of doing it i think it's

certainly the way you hope to do it and that is true quality think your friends and you've been listening to edith stop who is the editor of carousel books saying a random house in a discussion with richard harris on the literary experience of children ms tierce is the author of two anthologies of poems for children the moment of wonder and in the spring garden miracles a collection of poetry by children was recently issued by simon and schuster this has been directions in children's literature one in a series of programs with rigid years and leading authorities in the field of children's literature at this time next week mary greco lecture and library service school library service columbia university will discuss new dimensions for children's libraries for free summary of this podcast send a self addressed stamped envelope to dumb you are they are you york new york one of two seven this series is produced by richard harris answer of peter's for wypr the

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