Children's Literature is not Baby Formula

Children's Literature is not Baby Formula is currently the title of my dissertation-- we'll see if I want to keep this title and if I'm allowed to keep this title, but as I'm reading about people's views of popular culture, I'm realizing that not only is pop culture considered less than high culture, it's considered to be culture in its simplest form--already broken down so it's easy to digest. Sort of like baby formula.

The argument that some (I realize I need to figure out who all the somes are) make is that popular culture is what is left over after high culture has decided what it wants to claim. But it can't be that simple. I keep thinking of the old proverb-- what is popular is not always right and what is right is not always popular-- but, sometimes it is. Sometimes something that is well done can be appreciated as well.

Stuart Hall argues that people need to be more discriminating in their views of culture. That not all high culture is good, while not all popular culture is bad. I think this is really important when it comes to thinking about Children's Literature. There seem to be 2 schools of thought when it comes to children's literature-- those who think all children's literature is a pre-digested form of literature-- that none of it is as good as high culture literature, and those who think that there are high culture children's books and popular culture children's books. In reality, I think I fall in the second category--but I want to challenge myself, and others, to think beyond the 2 divisions of high culture and popular culture. Because, I see well-done popular books getting bypassed in the high culture division, and that drives me crazy. The most obvious example of this is Harry Potter. Because the Harry Potter books are so popular, they don't seem to get nominated for some book awards that they might deserve. On behalf of the librarians who make those decisions, I understand why-- the librarians hope to bring to attention well done books that might not get the attention they deserve, and Harry Potter already gets his fair share of attention. But, Rowling also deserves some credit for her style of writing. Although, it's not the book awards that jump out at me the most with the Potter series, it's the films. The fourth Potter film was nominated for several Oscars-- of which it won none, and not because it didn't deserve to win, but because Oscars seem to go only to films that are not popular. The Potter books sometimes seem like an overdone example, but because of their popularity, they are one that people understand.

There are some children's and young adult books that are better than others. But, it doesn't take a Newberry award to determine that, just as it doesn't take a Pulitzer or Nobel prize in literature to determine if an adult fiction book is of the highest quality.

I don't want to turn my dissertation into an argument that says Children's Literature is a true form of literature. But I also don't want to give in to the idea that what is good isn't' popular and what is popular isn't good.

Culture and Children's Literature

I'm trying to think about how culture is in children's literature. I am thinking about all the new young adult texts that reference television and technology. YA authors are aware that their readers live in a world outside of books, and they want to reference that world.

BUT...

YA authors are also trying to reshape culture. Now culture is a complex word-- it doesn't have one simple definition-- for starters there is high culture, mass culture, and popular culture. But, what I think YA fiction is attempting to do is to alter popular culture. It is circular though-- there are ways culture is influencing the YA text.

But in regards to literature influencing culture--For kids-- peer pressure has always been an issue spoken about-- one child behaves as another leads him/her to do. So, now, books want to change that. Books like When Zachary Beaver Comes to Town tell you to be nice to the fat kid. Freak The Mighty teaches to be nice to the disabled. Hoot teaches kids to honor the environment. Monster tells you to not give in to peer pressure. Somehow it's not the same didactic lesson that showed up in the nineteenth century. In the books, it's not the adults telling the kids how to live-- it's kids telling other kids how to live. It's almost like there is a high culture among children. Children's high culture is living up to a higher standard than popular children's culture. Children's high culture calls YA readers to care about the environment, to realize that brain is more powerful than brawn. It's a subculture of children who are aware of things their parents weren't aware of in their youth.

Popular Culture

"A second way of defining popular culture is to suggest that it is the culture which is left over after we have decided what is high culture." This quote is from John Storey's Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: An Introduction, pg 5.

As I seek to figure out why popular culture is such an integral part of Children's literature, this quote strikes me as a missing piece to the puzzle.

Children are a valuable part of society. Without them, society, in essence, would end. On one hand children are privledged--If we pay attention to all the advertising dollars spent on telling parents what their children need and telling children what they must have, then we know that children are privledged. On the other hand, children are neglected. When we look at how many hours children spend a day in day care, we can realize that children often are missing a consistent foundational example.

Grey's Anatomy this week, a father says, "I went soft. I quit being a father when he needed a father the most." Talking about after divorce.

Storey uses Raymond Williams to define culture as one of 3 things.
A means to refer to "a general process of intellectual, spiritual and aesthetic development"
A means to suggest "A particular way of life, whether of a people, a period or a group"
A means to describe "The works and practices of intellectual and especially artistic activity"

Storey feels that popular culture must be one of the last 2. I disagree when it comes to children. Although they are the second definition, I think they are because they are attempting to be the first. Children spend some time with adults. They spend time with their parents, but they spend more time with one another. Therefore, while they are told which things to value intellectually, spiritually, and aesthetically, they must as young adults decide for themselves which things they will value. So, they often make these decisions as a group, a population. Young adults often decide that they don't need what others have deemed high culture. They do not need to privledge the same things other's privledge. Young adults will choose to show intellectual, spiritual, and aesthetic development through their own media, and right now those media are often related to the internet. Young adult authors realize this. They understand that instead of using high culture intertextual examples in their texts, they should use the lessons learned from media as a means to convey meaning.

boycott kroger

I know that I usually write about academic things, but today I am mad at Kroger. I like Mexican food, it might even be my favorite. So, last night I decided that I wanted to make tacos. So after I prepared my dinner I opened up a new jar of Kroger brand salsa. I didn't look at the jar. I didn't check the date-- I just opened the jar and put salsa on my taco-- well, the salsa was rancid. Yep== the nastiest stuff on earth. so, now I check the date-- Dec 2007. I think Sept 2006 falls within that time frame. So, I go up to Kroger to take back my nasty salsa, and the customer service rep acts like I'm the biggest inconvience in her day. I mean it's not an inconvience to have my dinner ruined. It's not an inconvience to have to drive up to Kroger in the rain. I've always been a fan of Kroger-- but not anymore. At least not my Kroger. I'm not giving them another dime of my business.

Click Here

Denise Vega wrote a young adult novel called Click Here. It brings new light to the ideas of intertextuality. These are the ideas of intertextuality that I hope to explore. I want to look at how culture is a text and how children's literature references that text.

Click Here is about a girl who loves computers. She wants to design a webpage, so she does. It's almost like a glorified blog-- she keeps her diary on this webpage. She practices using code and she creates tabs to go from one page to another. But, her webpage is private. She doesn't intend for it to be published. SPOILER ALERT... When she accidentally publishes her webpage, it wreaks havoc on her life. Then the intertextuality strengthens because she compares herself to Harriet the Spy.

The aspect of the book that I find interesting is Erin's, the protagonist, interest in technology. She joins the computer club and helps other kids create a school webpage. Vega sprinkles technological jargon throughout the text, creating an intertextuality that expects the reader to understand my space culture.

I'm looking forward to exploring these ideas further.

Too Long

Wow-- it's been too long since I've written on here. I had a baby. That somehow distracts from things like blogs. I'm happy to say that i'm starting to think about children's books again though.

TTYL

This week I realized that although I keep this blog and I do other online work, I'm not quite as online savvy as I thought. I was at the library and saw ttyl by Lauren Myracle and decided to check it out. The first thing I had to figure out was what IM phrase does ttyl stand for-- I believe it's talk to ya later. I could be wrong. This entire book is written in IM format-- the different fonts, the shortcut words, the fragmented thought...

When I think about children's literature, I realize that it cannot help but to be linked to popular culture. While the genre of realistic fiction shows this the most obviously, all of the genre's of children's literature have some connection to what is happening in modern times. There is always a degree of intertextuality that cannot be avoided between what is being written for the child reader and what is going on in pop culture.

ttyl on one had dates itself because the characters watch television shows like Kim Possible and That 70's Show. They make fun of younger siblings who watch 7th Heaven and Lizzie McGuire. But, the book also shows classic school curriculum-- one character is reading The Great Gatsby for her English class.

The thing that strikes me the most about the novel is that it is written entirely as IM posts. Novels that were unique used to be written as letters or journal entries, but now media has become a tie in. The novel talks about the girls hanging out at school, sending email, talking on the phone, spending the night at one another's homes, but the text only occurs in IM, and the girls decide "some things r easier to talk about over the computer" (208). Now, media isn't just a supplement to a person's life. It is an element of that person's life. This book does not show media as a means to an end-- it is the end in and of itself.

Although I didn't think this was the most interesting book I've ever read, the plot was a little too predictable, the formatting fascinates me.

but, g2g, l8r

Winn Dixie

I read Because of Winn Dixie yesterday. I wasn't really planning on reading it, but I had a lot of time in waiting rooms, so I got it finished.

It's interesting when I think about it in terms of criticism. The book has a nice enough story to it-- kids seem to like it, but I guess I'm fascinated by some of the critical elements.

One is gaps-- Gloria Dump is called a witch, but she isn't-- the characters say there is no such thing as witches. But why do they think she's a witch in the first place. What has she done to scare the children before Opal arrives on the scene and shows that she's so nice?

One is stereotypes-- Boys and girls don't get along, but then at the end they become friends-- but nothing happens to make the friendship at all seem natural. Opal's mom has left and she misses her. That's a crucial theme to the book, but she leaves because she doesn't like being a preacher's wife and she drinks. It just all seems a bit contrived.

Then there is the dog--If this dog is so great, why has he been neglected? Why isn't anyone looking for a well behaved dog that smiles?

intertextuality

I read N.E. Bode's book _The Anybodies_ this weekend. It's a creative story. The thing I'm most interested in is it's intertextuality. It matches up with Maria Nikoljelavia's ideas about intertextuality. The author expects the reader to have read a certain number of classics in order to fully get everything out of the book. But, Bode does list off all of the books he references on his webpage, and that seems to minimize the effect somehow.

The things I don't like about the book--It is too obviously set up for a sequel and the author interrupts the story why too often to talk about himself. He doesn't do the nineteenth century dear reader bit, but he reminds the reader too often that this is a book and how this is fantasy and it differs from reality. To me that seems like a bit of intertexutality in and of itself.

Criticism and Intent

Brian Alderson-- back in the late 60's said that when people evaluate children's literature they shouldn't care about children-- that although the evaluation would lack the influence of the intended audience and the authorial intention, it would remain non-subjective.

I disagree.

I don't think there can be non-subjective criticisms of literature. There can be objective evaluation-- Something is awkward, it doesn't flow, it is full of grammatical errors, the plot doesn't make sense. These things can be objectively determined. Criticism though, I believe, always has a bias. I am looking for the political undertone, the gender/class issues, the moral lesson. I'm not saying this is wrong-- and sometimes a message-- especially a moral message in a work for children seems obvious, but I think disregarding the child and disregarding the author's intent is not a way to be objective when looking at children's literature.

Dumbing Down Children?

It's interesting to me-- Stephen Johnson in _Everything Bad is Good for You_ talks about how so many people think that because kids play video games instead of reading books that we are dumbing kids down. He argues that that is not in fact the case-- but rather that video games bring about a higher level of thinking that kids participate in. Anne MacLeod in _American Childhood_ discusses how the books of the 50s and 60s encouraged girls to be content with their lives. She looks at American culture of the 50s and how for the first time teenagers had some of their own freedoms and were becoming their own culture and how that during that time they were marrying younger than ever before.

So, this is what I find interesting... If anything, it is the books of the 50s and 60s that are dumbing children down-- the books that no one censors because there is no violence and no controversy-- unless marrying young is considered "dangerous." These books show people going to school and going to college and living the American dream of mediocrity. Contemporary texts show students competing--striving to overcome the system--not being content with their lives the way they are. Or if the character is passive, that is considered a weakness.

Now I wonder, what is true dumbing down? Is it writing things in a particular way? Is it thinking about something in a particular way? Or, is it a perception of what this world should be like?

Children's Literature

It's been a while since I've posted anything-- not that I haven't been reading or thinking about stuff, but now isn't the time to catch all of that up.

Jack Zipes, and others--Beverly Lyon Clark, like to point out that there is no such thing as Children's Literature. Children's Literature should be literature by children for children. But, children aren't published writers. I think this is an interesting thought because I've been questioned when saying that I want to do childist criticism-- but really that's what people who look at books who are written by adults with child protagonists are doing. We cannot regress to the status of child again-- so we don't really know how children will perceive a certain text-- and good writers for children don't write thinking only a child will read the book. So, I think looking at the role of the child in the book is a good way to discuss what has popularly been termed children's literature.

In a different direction-- although related-- Zipes also says that children can't produce their own culture--they can only respond to things adults create for them-- but I think that is starting to change. In music now, there are kids singing, doing remakes of popular songs, on CD's. This is kids doing art for kids-- but it is still controlled by adults--who gets to decide which music is being played, listened to, recorded-- who decides which kid gets to make an album-- that is still adults. Whether or not we like it, adults control the culture of children. Maybe that is why teenagers like the web so much-- it gives them an opportunity to write their own story. Just a thought.

Huck Finn

Is the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn a book for children or a book for adults? It's the story of a child, but it uses questionable language and it exposes children to inappropriate things, and so it gets put in this middle place of questioning.

I find this middle place fascinating-- I applaud Samuel Clemens for not saying, oh, kids might read this book I had better... Although in the mid-nineteenth century few novelists concerned themselves with a child reader.

Susan Honeyman, in her text Elusive Childhood, talks about authors who give children adult characteristics and adults child-like characteristics, and she comments on how adult it is of Huck to sympathize with Jim when he misses his family. Huck thinks "I do believe he cared just as much for his people as white folks do for their'n." This statement is supposed to be this great commentary on race. Mature Huck, through Jim, learns to see people as equals. I think something is missing here though-- Jim is a good guy. Jim loves his wife and children. This is not something that Huck has seen before. There are no references to him having a mother. His father is MIA most of the time, and when he is around, he's quite abusive. I would think that Huck would see Jim's love for his family as an anomoly instead of as an equalizer.

Books for children are not just this place to say-- this is a story about kids-- or story telling how kids should behave. Books for children provide places for analysis. Why do critics always jump to race issues when discussing Huck? Huck introduces us to a number of character types, and these introductions provide us a different glimpse of culture than we might have caught before.

Technology as Text

We read technology. We might not know how to read HTML code or binary computer languages, but we still read technology. If we know codes, we can read them; they are a text. They are almost an informational how-to manual. When we don't know the codes that make technology behave as it does, we still are reading technology.

What does it mean when someone keeps a blog? What is he/she doing?

A blog is a web-log. This web-log can be analyzed just as easily as letters or a journal, except there are more things to take into consideration.

Reading technology is no longer just about the text. Don't get me wrong, the text matters, but it cannot reign supreme in the message. Technology takes away a private audience. It also reveals things about the users and the creators that add to the message of the text.

We read technology-- we do it every day-- we just sometimes miss a part of the message.

Subjectivity and Semiotic Discourse

James Paul Gee in his book What Video Games can Teach Us about Learning and Literacy spends a lot of time talking about the semiotic discourses of video games-- how gammers have a vocabulary onto themselves and how different games create different discourses, but that video games are extremely collaborative-- more than might initially meet the eye.

Robyn McCullum in her book Ideologies of Identity in Adolescent Fiction addresses subjectivity and intersubjectivity while looking at psychological theory. She says, "BakhtinÂ’s ideas about language acquisition are pertinent to the analysis of novels which represent the movement out of solipsism as taking place within a context which is culturally and/or linguistically alien and which depict characters appropriating and assimilating the discourses of others" (104).

McCullum's quote brings me back to Gee and semiotic discourse. Adolescents understand one another--whether in books or in real life-- but they do so by developing their own discourse. They don't need academic discourse or their parent's discourse-- they use the discourse of video games, of instant messenger, of... Being an adolescent has always had an element of adapting to someone else's discourse. Now though, the discourse often results from new media rather than traditional media-- however, we know the language of technology is lasting, while constantly evolving, because it does appear in print.

Hoodwinked

Last night I went to see Hoodwinked, and I thought it was boring. I liked the premise of the movie, and I was looking forward to seeing it, and then it wasn't what I expected. My first thoughts were that it just wasn't that funny, but I don't know that fairy tales are supposed to be funny.

Right now I'm reading Stephen Johnson's Everything Bad is Good for You and in it he says "Much has been written bout the dexterity with which the creators of these recent films [cartoons for children] build distinct layers of information into their plots, dialogues, and visual effects, creating a kind of hybrid form that dazzles children without boring grownups." And I realized that this was my problem with the movie.

The premise of Hoodwinked is that there is always more than one side to the story, so we get the story of Little Red Riding Hood from 4 perspectives trying to figure out who the real bad guy is. This sounds like it will have some layers of information. It looks like it will require the audience to do a little problem solving. And it does. But the key word is little. It's obvious pretty early on who the real bad guy is-- of course it can't be the wolf--that wouldn't be original. It can't be the little girl-- that would go against the audience. It can't be the Granny because that would upset the political correctness of the film. So, that leaves the woodsman or an outside character.

I know that Hoodwinked is aimed at a child audience vs. an adult audience, but that doesn't mean that the movie needs to be so simple that adults are bored. Toy Story and Finding Nemo remain appropriate for children but still use cultural references that make the story more entertaining for adults. Hoodwinked has some of that-- when the wolf is talking to the evil character, he makes a few references to typical evil characters-- but they are all stereotypical aspects that any child would understand from watching any Saturday morning cartoons.

Children's literature is trying to break stereotypes. Children's film and video games is striving to adhere to the multi-layered narrative that our culture now appreciates. So, I'm disappointed when movies like Hoodwinked come out, because I feel that it falls short of what it could have done.

New Post

I realize that it has been a long time since I've posted anything to my blog. I've been busy reading and thinking about what other people think rather than thinking what I think. On one hand it's nice to realize that I'm increasing my knowledge base. On the other hand, I know that education is not about simply knowing what other people think. I have to think about what they think and use it to create my own thoughts.

I've got a couple of projects brewing in my mind though, and that is fun.

Fantasy and Science

I just finished reading Chet Raymo's article "Dr. Seuss and Dr. Einstein" where he discusses the connection between science and fantasy in children's literature. I find this really interesting because I realize the similarities between science and hypertextual thinking.

Raymo believes that children's fantasy is a good precursor to science because it teaches children to think out of the box-- to be creative in the connections they draw--to believe that the unseen can still exist.

If this is true, then either fantasy is also a good precursor for computer programming or computer knowledge is also a good precursor for science. Maybe this isn't an either or situation-- maybe it's both.

Hypertext is great for the hyperactive mind. Thus the common prefix hyper. Hypertext does a couple of things for its readers-- it allows them to break off and look at things they're interested in, and it allows them to trail off to a new direction when they are no longer interested in their current path. Fantasy does not allow the reader to go wherever he/she pleases. But, it does take the reader off the beaten path.

I think there is more of a connection between children's literature and technology than simply video games and movies that are made about books for children. Children's fantasy and technology are both attempting to shape the way children think.

Margaret Atwood and Censorship

Margaret Atwood writes a creative take on censorship in a group of readings about children's literature called Only Connect. There will always be people who censor stuff-- it's the American way. Although we have the freedom to do whatever we want, it's our duty to try to take that freedom away from others-- at least it often appears that way when people censor books. Not that I think all books are appropriate, but I don't think that is a decision that should be made by a special interest group.

Anyway, off of my opinion and back to Atwood.

I thought I would include part of her article below.

There was once a poor girl, as beautiful as she was good, who lived with her wicked stepmother in a house in the forest.

Forest? Forest is passe, I mean, I've had it with all the wilderness stuff. It's not a right image of our society, today. Let's have some urban for a change.

There was once a poor girl, as beautiful as she was good, who lived with her wicked stepmother in a house in the suburbs.

That's better. But I have to seriously query this word poor.

But she was poor!

Poor is relative. She lived in a house, didn't she?

Yes.

Then socio-economically speaking, she was not poor.

But none of the money was hers! The whole point of the story is that the wicked stepmother makes her wear old clothes and sleep in the fireplace--

Atwood goes on to completely destroy, because of censorship, the entire beginning of Cinderella. This also makes me think of composition because these are some comments we might make to students who are writing composition-- we want good details-- but creative writing has to leave a place for the fairy tale.