As we wrap up another theme on the Early Literacy Initiative’s blog, we’d like to pause and go back in time to understand how we engaged with Children’s Literature. 

We started with a piece by Professor Shailaja Menon, titled “Supporting Early Language and Literacy through Children’s Literature.” It’s an English translation of an original article that was published in Basha Boli. In this piece Prof. Menon engaged us with the questions – What is literature? Why do early language and literacy classrooms need literature? What kinds of literature are suitable for young children?, and so on. She reiterates the fact that there is a strong need to transcend the limited ways in which we define literacy currently and questions the implicit assumptions that validate rampant classroom practices. She further makes a compelling argument for children’s literature to be considered central to early language and literacy teaching and learning. She also recommends some time-tested ways of engaging learners through literature in the classroom.

Usha Mukunda in her blog post “The Readiness is all”, takes us through her journey as she breaks down what it means for a child to be “ready” to engage with a certain kind of writing. She takes us through her own ponderings as she asks herself pertinent questions – Is readiness subjective? What does it mean to read a text with a certain emotional investment? What’s lost in the absence of such an involvement? What happens to a reader when a text moves them? As she revisits each of her experiences, we understand that “readiness” is rather complex in that it can be interpreted in many ways! It is not just limited to the ability to read and engage with a text at a superficial level. It entails picking up nuances of all kinds, be it the themes that may be especially difficult, the ability to appreciate humour, discern elegance of language, recognizing complexities of characterization, the ability to unravel mysteries and what not. She points to the fact that all these abilities require a certain maturity in the reader – and the balance is to be sought by allowing for this maturity to grow on the reader. The crux of the matter as she says it is, irrespective of whether an adult thinks a young person is ready or not, it always serves us well to trust our young readers so long as we help them talk about how they responded to the texts they so wanted to read. In this way, we allow them the freedom as well as the space to experience it out for themselves.

In another blog piece, we dwell on the idea of a child as an autonomous individual – should a child be seen as such or not? In “Child Beyond the Threshold”, Jane Sahi takes us through a number of examples from Children’s literature that help us identify the underlying assumptions about a child’s capacity or lack of it to be an autonomous and independent individual. Jane beautifully presents a few books that attempt at representing the “possible worlds” where a child is seen as a resilient, insightful and receptive learner. These books, which are delightfully Indian, are an alternative to the dominant view of a child as being dependent, naïve and passive. She rightly concludes that there is a healthy realism that underlies the child’s view of the world and that the child is not wholly defined within the context of the family, educational institution and cultural norms of society, but maintains a certain independence of his/her own.

Maitri Vasudev, in “To teach or not to teach? A closer look at Morals and Values in Children’s Literature” tries to ponder over a puzzling question that most of us seem to have when it comes to engaging children with stories. Should we ‘teach’ morals or values through stories? If yes, do we make this explicit or should we allow for an implicit connection to be made by the listener or reader? Maitri takes this opportunity to help us understand how Indian children’s books incorporate morals and values in their stories by giving us two contrasting examples which sure help make a clear distinction. She opines that the best approach would be to throw light on real experiences and real responses and allow that to work its magic on the youngsters who will eventually discern and take what they would have to - willingly, as they all have the capability and intelligence.

In “Writing for Children – It’s complicated!”, Mini Shrinivasan talks about her experience as an author who writes for an audience that is largely comprised of children. What is it like, to be a children’s writer? What does it entail? We understand that in order to write for children, one must know how to speak to them and one must have an interest in the unique and complex mind of the child. Mini shared snippets from her own journey as a writer and the struggles she had to go through to come up with writing that is as authentic as possible.

Harshita Das, in “Relating with Children through Literature”, shared a few of her experiences as a teacher who read to her students often and how this practice apart from being exceptionally useful in developing a keen interest in language amongst the children, it also helped them bond beyond the teacher and taught relationship.

We would like to believe that each blog piece has helped us engage with the theme of Children’s Literature in a very unique way. When we try and connect the dots we cannot but take note of the fact that Children’s literature offers itself in ways that one cannot miss acknowledging the value it adds to a language and literacy classroom. It was our endevaour to bring this aspect out more starkly – Children’s Literature should be a central and essential part of early literacy and language curricula. We hope to continue conversations around this and we urge you, our readers to help keep this going. We will soon compile a list of recommended children’s books and share it here, so do watch this space!