My vision for the future of children’s literature is
influenced by three experiences:
- Myself as an avid reader of a variety of fiction and non fiction
- My experience as a primary school teacher
- My experience as a parent
For myself as an avid reader, I find it hard to comprehend a
world where narrative does not exist in both hard copy and electronic form.
There are people who believed that television heralded the end of print, yet
that was not the end result. There are people who believe that the Information
age heralds an end to print publications of books. While there is evidence of
significant growth in the ebook market, most people I speak to of my generation
or above, still love the feel of a solid book in their hands. That is not to
say we don’t embrace the digital book revolution. I own a kindle, and I love
being able to download a book at a moments notice. I still love a real book
though and will continue to both buy and read printed materials.
I have not had much to do with digital narratives other than
the static ebook versions of printed materials, and after reading Madej’s
‘Towards digital narrative for children: from education to entertainment, a
historical perspective.” (2003), I realize that I have more research to do in
this area. Noting that this paper was written ten years ago, it will be
interesting to explore whether much progress has been made in making digital
narrative of a higher quality with more complex narrative, rather than just
action and games.
As a primary school teacher since the early 90’s, I have
witnessed the impact that digital technologies have had on our children. As
Prensky (2001) defines, they are digital natives, who instinctively know how to
navigate and interact with 21st century literacies. I know that for
most of my students, using a smart device, a tablet, a lap top, a PC is
preferable to other forms of communication. And yet! The moment in the
classroom that they always clamoured for, demanded on a daily basis and would
bemoan the conclusion of, was the reading of the class text, out loud by me to
them. We used a variety of digital narrative experiences throughout the
curriculum, but this was THE one narrative experience they desired. I believe
that today’s children enjoy print media as much as previous generations,
despite their relationship with digital technologies. I believe that children
today desire good quality narrative experiences as much as previous
generations. So I used this opportunity to share good quality children’s books
that they were unfamiliar with, to broaden their knowledge and experience of
narrative; to build exciting, adventurous, thrilling, emotional narrative
experiences based on words and imagination beyond the visual. Based on my
experience, it worked and if we can keep it working for our younger students,
they will hopefully carry that with them as they grow.
As a parent of two small children, I cringe when they get to
choose their own books to buy (as they did at the school book fair on Friday)
and we come home with Barbie Mariposa and two Lalaloopsy books. But as I
believe in giving them the opportunity to choose, those books are now on the
bookshelves and have been read far to many times in the past 48 hours! However,
in saying this, a couple of books that I consider non-literature, are well out
classed by the volume of better quality books that are read to my children over
and over and over again. Reading Barone’s discussion on a brief history of
children’s literature, (2011, pg 8-15), I was delighted to realize that we have
so many of the narratives she mentioned.
Narratives that I love to read to my
children, that are lovingly located on their bookshelves and made the journey
from Australia to Canada with us when we moved. Books my children love and woe
betide the tired mother who tries to cut nightly storytime down to just 2 or 3 beloved
books! My children demand their storytime, and delight in being read familiar
and unfamiliar books. My children, who love TV and smart devices as much as the
next kid, also love narrative and the delight and excitement when I announce
that I have new books is more than they show for any toy that comes into the
house. So, although Barbie and Lalaloopsy came home with is on Friday, I know
that the narrative experiences I provide my children on a nightly basis is
creating a sound narrative future for them, where they will (eventually) choose
narrative texts beyond the scope of TV characters.
And I know I must be doing something right, when faced with
no television, I find them tucked away in bed together, reading.
And who doesn’t love a 2 year old who weeps because she
didn’t get to go to the library when I took Miss 4?
So, the future of children’s literature? Totally in our
hands! As the educators and parents of children today, it is our responsibility
to share and promote children’s literature whether it be in print or digital
form. We must not sit back and accept the dominance of internet gaming and
digital storytelling as the prime literary experience for our children. We need
to share with them the depth and variety that can be found in narrative when
read and bring to them world’s created with words, not just pictures.
Barone, D. M. (2011). A brief history
of children's literature. Children's literature in the classroom :
engaging lifelong readers (pp. 8-19). New York: Guilford Press.
Madej,
K. (2003). Towards digital narrative for children: from education to
entertainment, a historical perspective. ACM Computers
and Entertainment, Vol. 1, No. 1, . doi: 10.1145/950566.950585
Prensky,
M. (2001) Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. On the Horizon (MCB University
Press) 9 (5)
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