1. It is fun!
Reading and enjoying a book with children offers multiple benefits, not only for language development but also for building a love and appreciation for reading.
2. It aids in the acquisition of language and language development
Research shows a strong correlation between a child's exposure to reading and his/her vocabulary
3. It develops empathy
How better to understand and appreciate others than to get inside the mind of a character and experience life in someone else's world.
4. It supports life long readers
By reading with children, we can model what it's like to get lost in a book and demonstrate aesthetic responses like hypothesizing, imagining and discussing opinions. Sharing books with kids also gives us an opportunity to share the value of reading about characters who are like us and learn from characters who are not. Through these characters, children can form opinions and begin to shape their beliefs.
5. It develops the imagination
Reading can take you places! Authors have a gift for creating magical worlds, both real and fantastic. Learning how to escape into these worlds is a gift we can pass along to our children and students.
6. It can transmit culture
Reading offers an all access pass into the lives of people of all cultures and beliefs.
Divisions of Young People's Literature
- Children - ages 0-8
- wordless picture books, picture books, easy readers, illustrated chapter books, early chapter books
- Middle Grade/Tween - ages 8-12
- not to be confused with Middle School 11-13 - challenging group. Much of middle grade is too childish, while young adult is too mature.
- Young adult - ages 13-18
- contains edgier topics such as first sexual experience
- New Adult - ages 18-30
- main character is often college age, exploring life just after high school
Genres - there are only two genres - fiction or nonfiction - everything else is a subgenre
- fiction = realism and fantasy
- realism consists of contemporary or historical fiction
- fantasy can be
- traditional = fairy tales, folklore, myths, fables and legends
- modern = hard science fiction, soft science fiction, high fantasy, low fantasy
- nonfiction = informational (biography, narrative nonfiction and expository nonfiction)
Formats - Poetry, Drama, Novels, Chapter books, short stories, picture books, graphic novels
What is YA literature?
- young & highly independent protagonist
- adolescent point of view
- main character must make decisions and face consequences
- deals with contemporary issues
- follows gradual but incomplete growth in the main character
- has direct confrontation
- takes place in a limited setting during a short time period
- only a few fully developed characters
- adolescent development plays a part
- Physical development - overriding question - Am I normal?
We should look for books that help students relate to others at that age, so they can see that their feelings/concerns are common.
- Intellectual - differences between understanding concrete and abstract
- Developmental (according to Havighurst)
- adapting to physical body
- developing their own value and morals
- learning to get along with peers
- relationships with opposite sex
- relationship with parents are changing
- beginning to pursue vocation
- beginning to work for pay
- defining appropriate sex roles
Libraries should offer students a safe place. A child's physiological needs will override all other needs. We all have a need to be respected! (Maslow)
- Developing as readers
- develop empathy
- unconscious delight (getting lost in a book)
- reading autobiographically - finding yourself in a book
- reading for vicarious experience - living through the character's experiences
- reading for philosophical speculation
- reading for aesthetic experiences
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