I started up a new class on Children's Literature, and had to write my initial post to the message board introducing myself. I decided to post it here, too, because it's easier than original content. Enjoy!
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As a child, I was a voracious reader. I didn’t have many friends, and my family life was abusive, so reading was one of my escapes from reality for a time, though it wasn’t only fiction I read. I also read a lot of nonfiction, mostly books on space and science. As my school career went on, I grew to dislike any book that was assigned reading, as I felt like it was my escape, and I didn’t want to be forced to read X when I wanted to read Y. I think this attitude really caused some issues with my own enjoyment of reading, and my own knowledge, and I wish I could go back and erase that part of my history. I fell out of reading for personal enjoyment for a long while, and have really only recently begun to find that joy again (well, recently as in the past ten years).
My favorite genre as a child was science fiction. I craved the feeling of freedom that a lot of sci-fi provided. To this day, my favorite book, and the book I’ve read the most times in my life (not including reading and rereading books to my children) is The Time Machine, by H. G. Wells. Wells continues to be my favorite author, even if I am not as much into sci-fi these days.
What I like more now is travelogues, “slice of life” nonfiction, and memoirs. I like learning about the ways that other people have lived, and it has finally, at 32, given me some much needed insight into processing my own childhood, and my own life.
Other than that, I actually really do enjoy children’s books, and have tried my hand at writing my own over the years, but then I read something by say Sandra Boynton (probably my favorite children’s book author), with perfectly realized words and art, and I realize that my stuff is awful in comparison. Of course, rationally I realize that that is because of my own self esteem issues stemming from my childhood, but sometimes the rationality is hard to escape.
A lot of what Galda, Sipe, Liang, and Cullinan (2010) wrote about regarding the power of literature I believe rings true in my experiences. Their statement that avid reading leads to a better understanding of the world is something that I have really come to appreciate more and more over my lifetime, and something I hope to make use of in my own parenting (pp. 6-7).
For this course, I hope to learn more about what makes a good children’s book, and how to encourage my own children (currently six and four) to get interested, and stay interested, in reading.
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