Text for children are less thoughtful because children are less intelligent.Of course she sets these claims up to demolish them. I sort of see where she's coming from, but these still strike me as strawman shibboleths. Has anybody not obviously a dunderhead ever actually believed anything so foolish as these statements? I doubt it.
Art for children is less fine because children are less observant. Illustrations for children reiterate texts and decorate pages, playing negligible roles in the storytelling.
If a book is short, it is simple.
Tuesday, 11 February 2014
Sendakian Shibboleths
Amy Sonheim ['Sendak's Sustainable Art', PMLA 129:.1 (Jan 2014), 116] says that when she began studying children's literature at grad school 'I did not know how to read a picture book.' Why not? 'I could not appreciate a picture book because I had internalized the following shibboleths, which stack children's books below adult ones':
I would say that there's a perception that texts for children are simple in the sense that they are simple to produce, as in "anyone could do that" (see the rash of celebrity picture books and YA novels that crop up every few years). When the truth is that to create something as affecting and enduring as Where the Wild Things Are takes a lot of talent and work, and not a little bit of luck.
ReplyDeleteWhat you say is clearly right, Abigail; though I'd still suggest that nobody could actually think properly for 5 seconds and still believe her 'shibboleths'.
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