Synopsis
Mention a name from a beloved childhood picture book?Madeline, Corduroy, Peter Rabbit, Max and his ?wild things”?and most adults can recollect a bright image, fragments of a story, the timbre of a certain reading voice, the sensation of being held, and best of all being together with someone and enveloped in fantasy. Why do picture book images shown to us as young children linger in our minds? How do picture books shape our lives early on and even later into adulthood? This book takes up such questions. It explores the profound impact of the experience of reading to children. Ellen Handler Spitz reveals how classic picture books transmit psychological wisdom, convey moral lessons, shape tastes, and implant subtle prejudices.
Each chapter of the book discusses well-known children’s books?Goodnight Moon, Babar, Little Black Sambo, to name a few?that deal with a theme of importance to young children. These include bedtime, separation, loss, and death; curiosity, disobedience, and punishment; and identity and self-acceptance. Focusing on the relationship between a child and an adult reader, Spitz explains the notion of ?conversational reading” and emphasizes the mutual benefits of dialogue and intimacy. This book not only gives parents, grandparents, teachers, therapists, and scholars a new understanding of the meaning of picture books, it also empowers adults to interpret and choose future cultural experiences for their children.
Reviews
A fascinating, highly personal treatment of a popular genre. Spitz's psychoanalytical background, her passion for the role of art as a transmitter of culture, her observations of children's experiences with books, her knowledge of Jewish ritual and writings, and her own vivid childhood memories all inform and influence this work. In the process of explaining why certain titles have endured and in describing the importance of the adult/child interaction in revealing meaning, she provides in-depth analyses of familiar titles. Margaret Wise Brown's Goodnight Moon, Russell Hoban's Bedtime for Frances, Judith Viorst's The Tenth Good Thing about Barney, and Maurice Sendak's In the Night Kitchen are among those mentioned. Chapters on bedtime and separation, death and loss, disobedience and punishment, and the formation of identity provide a framework. Black-and-white reproductions of selected book covers and a list of picture books cited are included. The bibliography of secondary sources reflects the author's interdisciplinary approach.
Wendy Lukehart, Dauphin County Library, Harrisburg, PA
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Readers may never look at picture books in the same way after making their way through this thought-provoking examination. Focusing on her subject through the lens of psychology, Spitz (Art and the Psyche) argues that because picture books "provide children with some of their earliest takes on morality, taste, and basic cultural knowledge, including messages about gender, race, and class," it behooves adults to consider more carefully the images transmitted to their kids. Organized thematically, the chapters offer a wide-ranging discussion of art and artistry, visual and verbal cues and the transmission of culture through picture books that resonate with children, often for multiple generations. Whether examining motifs of darkness and abandonment in Margaret Wise Brown's classic bedtime tale Goodnight Moon, a child's yearning for power and independence in Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are or gender stereotyping in Beatrix Potter's The Tale of Peter Rabbit (comparing the bold and naughty Peter to his obedient sisters, she notes "the gendering is explicit: good is to girls as bad is to boys"), Spitz provides an illuminating analysis of what is often taken for granted. Sure to spark lively debate, her book is a must-read for any serious student of children's literature as well as that core group of parents, grandparents, teachers, librarians and others who are actively engaged in raising children. Provocative, well written, scholarly without being dry or pedantic, Spitz's text makes a compelling case for the power of art and literature, and the responsibility that accompanies such power, particularly when it relates to children.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Why do Madeline (1939), Goodnight Moon (1947), Where the Wild Things Are (1963), Corduroy (1968), and other picture-book classics continue to enthrall young children? And what about the new versions of the Little Black Sambo story? What do these books say to kids about race, ethnicity, and gender? Should preschoolers hear stories about sadness and loss? Without jargon or pretension, Spitz celebrates the story and art in these books while discussing their effects in terms of psychology, aesthetics, morality, and culture. In the style of Robert Coles, her interest is in the imaginative life of children, rather than in explicit self-help messages, and even readers who have known the books forever will find surprising things to think about. Parents and other adults who read aloud to kids, as well as children's literature professionals, will enjoy what Spitz shows about the power of these deceptively simple images and the pleasure of sharing them across generations. Hazel Rochman
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