For a prime example of Australia’s innovation economy in action, look no further than the humble picture book. Staple of bedtime reading, offering textual delights beyond the verbal, picture books are a hidden treasure.
Australian picture books sell around the world, and are translated into many languages — take for instance, Jackie French’s iconic Diary of a Wombat (2002), which appears in French, German, Korean, and many more. But though the words need translating, the images, (in French’s book by Bruce Whatley), communicate across language barriers.
The interplay between words and images is one of the magic ingredients in a show-stopping picture book. Achieving that magic requires serious innovation. Writers, illustrators and editors work hard to balance word with image, and to carry the story or message through both.
It takes time, dedication, and care to make a picture book, and though some may be flipped through in minutes, others repay repeated reading and looking. Next time you pick one up in a bookshop or library, look at its design, the way the pictures engage with character, or setting, or contribute to mood, theme, and the controlling idea.
Dirty Dinsoaur by Janeen Brian Viking
Ann James’s illustration of I’m a Dirty Dinosaur (2013) (text Janeen Brian) is a recent example. James’s lively dinosaur invites children in to the story, acting out the rhymes:
I’m a dirty dinosaur
with a dirty snout.
I never wipe it clean
I just sniff and snuff about.
Simple but evocative line drawings of this muddy dinosaur (made using Victorian mud!) connect beautifully with the energy of the rhymes, and provide young readers with visually engaging and memorable ideas.
Kevin Burgemeestre’s wonderful handmade dioramas on the cover of the recent Hush Treasure Book (2015) show that illustrations don’t have to be drawn to be lively and vivid. Indeed, in another of his books, B is for Bravo (2003), they provide a realistic but imaginative romp through an excitingly three-dimensional alphabet of Australian Aviation.
Illustrators conduct specific research to find just the right images for particular stories. Anne Spudvilas’s illustrations for the picture book version of Li Cunxin’s Mao’s Last Dancer (2003) use traditional watercolour, and collage from old newspapers, to convey the wealth and variety of Chinese culture.
Experimentation, consultation, imagination, teamwork and individual interpretation are the name of the game. And they demonstrate the incredible care writers and illustrators take to make books that speak to the text, and to the reader. You can see Ann James talk here about how she conveys emotion in collaboration with the author:
Jeannie Baker, meanwhile, takes collage to its highest level in her carefully crafted books. Her Window (1991), and Where the Forest Meets the Sea (1987) use layered and detailed images and to convey a powerful environmental message.
Sometimes words are unnecessary. Shaun Tan’s The Arrival (2007) tells a moving story about immigration through sepia pictures arranged as if in an old photo album. Any words would break the spell cast by these pictures, which call for a slow and thoughtful reading. Indeed, the only words that appear in the book are in a made-up font. Their unrecognisability symbolises the challenges facing new immigrants who have yet to learn the local language.
Gregory Rogers’s comic wordless story The Boy, the Bear, the Baron, the Bard (2004) is a wonderful contrast. Full of pace, fun, and historical detail, in company with the boy, bear and baron of the title, it takes us through the streets and theatres of Elizabethan London, pursued by the bard.
The Arrival by Shaun Tan Hodder & Stoughton
And Nick Bland challenges the form of the picture book altogether, with The Wrong Book (2009), in which monsters, pirates, royalty and animals intrude on the protagonist’s attempts to tell a story. (It’s available as a lovely app)
I’ve only touched on a few of the many wonderful Australian creators of picture books for young (and not so young) readers. Next time you read one (to yourself or to others), you could think about the innovation economy that is the illustration industry. But hopefully, and more likely, you could settle back and enjoy the story – words, images, and all.
This week is Children’s Book Week. And the Children’s Book Council of Australia will announce a swag of prizes in various award categories, including picture books.
The University of New England has hosted many illustrators over the years through a Copyright Agency Cultural Fund supported residency program. The work they did is on display at the University Library.
When my son was nine years old, he put aside the large Harry Potter novel he had been slowly, but enthusiastically, reading each evening and instead began ploughing through lots of fairly uninspiring books that he brought home from school each day.
It turned out the Year 4 teachers had devised a competition at his school – whichever class read the most books would be rewarded with an end of term pizza party.
The aim, I presume, was to motivate the children to read. It is ironic then that the effect was that my son stopped reading for pleasure and instead began reading for the numbers.
Reading is now increasingly being reduced to a numbers game in schools.
What level is your child at?
At pick up time, parents quiz each other about what reading level their child is on. Inside the school staff room, teachers are directed to have children on level 15, 20 or 30 by the end of the school year.
Six year olds are deciding whether they are good readers or not based on how many books they have ticked off on their take home reader sheet.
These levels are based on algorithms that calculate the ratio of syllables to sentences, or measure word frequency and sentence length.
The rationale is that these formulae can be applied to rank books on a scale of readability and thus guide teachers to match books with children’s reading ability.
There are two key problems with this numbers approach to reading. First, the algorithms are faulty. Second, publishers misuse them.
What makes a book hard or easy to read?
The missing variables in readability algorithms are the authors’ intentions, the readers’ motivations and the teachers’ instruction.
These are key omissions, and they seriously reduce the usability of the algorithms and the credibility of the reading levels they produce.
Fictional stories often use familiar and high frequency vocabulary, and many authors use relatively simple sentence structures.
However the use of literary tools like allegory and metaphor, along with challenging text themes, increases the difficulty of works of fiction in ways that are not captured in readability algorithms.
For example, readability formulae give Hemmingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea” a reading level suitable for primary school students. They may be able to decode the words on the page but comprehension of the book is less likely.
The same formulae may rank a non-fiction book on dinosaurs, for example, as only suitable for high school students because of its uncommon vocabulary, lengthy sentences and multi-syllabic words.
Yet a child’s interest and familiarity with the topic, or a teacher or parent’s support and instruction, can make that non-fiction book very readable for younger children.
Reading schemes
As readability formulae are not always a good fit for books, the solution has been, instead, to write books which fit the formulae. And publishers have been very keen to supply those books.
These are the books that our children take home each evening. They are written according to the numbers – numbers of high frequency words, numbers of syllables, numbers of words in a sentence.
What is missing in those books is author intention and craft, reader engagement and interest, and teacher support and instruction.
Essentially, then, what is missing in these books is the very essence of reading.
What books should children read?
We have been using the reading scheme system for decades and we still have children struggling to read.
When we use these quasi books to teach reading, we are not adequately preparing them for real reading.
These books, written to fit algorithms, don’t build broad vocabularies in our children. They don’t teach our children how to read complex sentence structures or deal with literary language or read between the lines. In many cases, they turn children off reading altogether.
Children learn to read by reading a book that is a little beyond what they can already read. The gap between what they can read and what they could read is reduced when the child:
is highly motivated by the content of the book;
has existing background knowledge about that content;
is receiving good instruction from a teacher.
We don’t need books arranged in coloured boxes labelled with level numbers to teach a child to read.
Beautifully written pieces of children’s literature will do the job.
Books full of carefully crafted writing by authors whose intentions are to engage, entertain and inform.
Books that teachers can work with in the classroom showing how sounds work in words, and how words work in sentences to make us feel, see or think new things.
Beautiful books that parents can also buy and delight in reading with their children.
Why it matters
The way we teach children to read will fundamentally influence what they understand the purpose of reading to be.
When we teach children to read through schemes that tally their books, we teach them that reading is simply about quantity. If reading is about getting a reward of a pizza, then children are less likely to read for intrinsic rewards.
The claims made for well-written children’s literature are many and varied.
Gorgon: a vicious female monster with sharp fangs. Her power was so strong that anyone attempting to look upon her would be turned to stone. The Gorgon wore a belt of serpents that intertwined as a clasp, confronting each other. There were three Gorgons, and each one had hair made of living snakes.
In The Gorgon in the Gully (2010), Melina Marchetta’s delightful book for 10-12 year olds, no one has ever seen a Gorgon. But one apparently lives in a small valley near the sports fields at the school attended by a boy called Danny. When Danny looks up Gorgon on the internet, he finds the above definition. And his local Gorgon’s reputation for fierceness is only equalled by its record as a hoarder of balls.
So when Danny’s ball goes into the gully, and Simmo, the School Bully, dares him to go in after it, Danny is caught between his fear of the Gorgon, and his fear of being a “gutless wonder”.
His mother advises him to:
look at whatever you’re scared of from a different angle. Look at it up really close. Find a friend at school who’s not afraid to look at things up close with you.
Ŧhe ₵oincidental Ðandy
Which is what Danny does. Gradually, he becomes friends with Simmo, and they work together to confront the Gorgon. When they finally do, they discover it is nothing like their imaginings. Indeed it’s not a Gorgon at all. It is a gentle old man who has been wondering when the children are going to retrieve their balls. In conquering his fear, Danny conquers the Gorgon, gets his ball back and becomes known as “Gorgon-buster”.
The Gorgon in the Gully goes neatly to the core of the Medusa allegory: if fear is petrifying, one needs to know how to look at it “up close”.
And like the hero Perseus assisted by the goddess Athena, who used a reflective shield to deflect Medusa’s stare and avoid being petrified, Danny finds a way to look closely at his fears from different angles, and to overcome them.
Lurking in literature
Monsters from classical myth have been lurking in the gullies of Western literature for a long time – in retellings and adaptations, and acting as symbols and metaphors for aspects of the human experience.
They’ve been surfacing recently in fantasy for children and young adults. Imaginary Medusas, realistically drawn Minotaurs, as well as a multitude of many-headed Scyllas, Hydras and Cerberuses: they all appear in Australian children’s and YA fiction.
Why are so many contemporary writers reconnecting with the monsters of classical myth? I think it’s partly because they provide profound connections to issues of identity, coming of age, and finding one’s place in the world. These are fundamental matters in children’s literature, which aims to educate and socialise children to fit in, and also to express their concerns about the world and their place in it.
And writers are working now in a globalised context, with a rich cornucopia of referents. The mash-up culture of film, television, gaming and comic book franchises is a case in point, in which protagonists connect with figure after figure from myth and legend.
It’s fun to play with mythical beasts. And it’s interesting to connect to them as well.
Connecting with Medusa can mean confronting her monstrous powers, facing the fear she represents. It can also mean sympathising with her.
As Ovid tells it, in one version of the myth (which like all classical myth has many variants), Medusa was seduced (or raped) by Poseidon in Athena’s temple, and Athena transformed her beautiful hair into snakes as a punishment for this defilement. Like many monstrous tales in Greek mythology, it doesn’t seem fair.
Today, some Australian writers are more sympathetic to Medusa, as can be seen in The Gaze of the Gorgon (2002), by Karen R. Brooks. This is the second novel in a four-part portal fantasy in which a magic necklace takes 13 year old Cassandra Klein to Morphea, a mystical realm in which myths and fairytales are living and real. There, she does battle with the witch Hecate, who is trying to get control over this fantasy world, and who forces Medusa to use her powers to turn the Morpheans to stone.
But when Caz meets Medusa, she discovers that she is, in fact, an unwilling tool of Hecate. Together, they agree to “reverse the evil” that has been done, and give the petrified ones back their lives. This means that Caz has to kill Medusa.
Gazing at the bowed head of the Gorgon, Caz took a deep breath. ‘I am so sorry,’ she whispered. And before she could change her mind, raised the sword above her head and dropped her arms.
The Gaze of the Gorgon, by Karen Brooks. Lothian Books (2002)
Caz and her friends gather the blood spurting from Medusa’s neck, and use it to heal wounds and revive the petrified. By willingly submitting to Caz’s blade, Medea’s death-dealing monstrosity is transformed into healing powers. It’s a revisionist take on the subject that comments on and compensates for the essential unfairness of Medusa’s treatment, both at the hands of Brooks’s Hecate, and Poseidon and Athena.
Mining hidden fears
This revisionist approach, which challenges the original myths, can also be seen in treatments of the Minotaur. To summarise the famously tangled myth: it is half-bull, half-man, the product of a union between Pasiphae, the queen of Crete, and a snow-white bull sent to the King (Minos) by Poseidon for sacrifice.
Because Minos kept the bull alive, Poseidon punished the family by making Pasiphae fall in love with it. And when she gave birth to the Minotaur, King Minos had it shut away in the Labyrinth, created by the master-inventor, Daedalus. Minos demanded regular sacrifice of Athenian youths and maidens – to be sent into the Labyrinth and devoured by the Minotaur.
The Athenian hero Theseus volunteered to go. Ariadne (daughter of Minos and Pasiphae) helped him find his way in and out of the labyrinth, using a ball of thread to guide him. He repaid her by abandoning her on an island, where she was discovered and taken up by Bacchus.
Theseus killing the Minotaur in Hyde Park’s Archibald Fountain. Gord Webster, CC BY-SA
Jennifer Cook’s Ariadne: The Maiden and the Minotaur (2005) is set in ancient Greece, and tells this story from the point of view of a key player, the princess Ariadne, or Ari.
Ariadne: The Maiden and the Minotaur, by Jennifer Cook. Lothian Books (2005)
Cook’s Ari is an impatient, irreverent, lively modern teenager, highly critical of her family.
Here, Cook draws attention to the point that the Minotaur is Ariadne’s blood relation, recasting it as Ari’s little brother “Tori”, a disabled child, Pasiphae’s illegitimate son (born from an affair, but not an affair with a bull). To his family, Tori is a symbol of shame and disgrace, both illegitimate and disabled.
In Cook’s story, it’s the Labyrinth, designed to contain many vicious traps, and King Minos’ insistence on the sacrifices, that kill the Athenians not the Minotaur.
In conspiring with Theseus, Ari saves Tori, and escapes with him. Far from being abandoned by Theseus and taken up by Bacchus she finds true love elsewhere, fading out of recorded story, with satisfaction.
When I asked Cook what drove this depiction of a feisty Ariadne, she replied:
I remember hearing the Minotaur myth and wondering about Ariadne and thinking how typical it was of the Greek hero Theseus to get all of the help from her and then take all of the credit. To add insult to injury he dumps her and takes off with her sister. And her reward? To get ‘married’ (Greek myth parlance for raped) by Dionysos [Bacchus]. And yes, I did my honours degree in feminist history.
Cook’s feminism, coupled with her sympathy for the Minotaur as unwitting victim of a dysfunctional family (and also of the gods), influences her approach to the myth. In essence it is a coming-of-age story, in which Ariadne identifies the true monsters in her family. Tori stands for all that the family is ashamed of; the myth of the Minotaur stands for the lies people tell when the truth is too frightening. In caring for Tori and rescuing him, Ari demonstrates modern Australian ideas of love, justice, and empathy far different from the stark ironies of the Ancient Greek myths.
Liberating and facing the Minotaur
These modern Australian attitudes can be seen too, in Myke Bartlett’s fantasy novel for teenagers, Fire in the Sea (2012), in which a terrifying Minotaur comes to Australia on a mystical mission to restore the lost city of Atlantis to life:
All eyes were on the matted fur of his head, the exposed and bloodied teeth, and the horns. The head of a bull, the body of a man, the teeth of a lion.
Fire in the Sea, by Myke Bartlett. Text Publishing, 2012
In this story, fantasy elements intrude on the real world and have to be dealt with by the protagonist, a teenage orphan called Sadie. She faces a brutally bestial fighting machine in the Minotaur. Yet as the story unfolds, Sadie discovers the Minotaur is a slave to Atlantis’s head priestess, Lysandra, acting against its will to keep her in power.
In the novel’s end game, when Lysandra’s realm is disintegrating below the waves, Sadie confronts the Minotaur, believing she is ready to kill it. But she looks into its eyes, and sees flickers of humanity. Unable to slay the beast, she severs the chain around its neck, liberating it from servitude.
Here, Bartlett points to the tragedy of the Minotaur’s origins: as an unwitting byproduct of the gods’ and humans’ treachery, it is forced to act as a symbol of monstrosity.
The book also makes a point that life is worth the risk of death. As an orphan who has witnessed her parents’ death, Sadie is deeply afraid of dying. Letting the Minotaur go means risking that it will kill her: what she is most afraid of.
Worse things than death?
But perhaps there are worse things than death. And in Requiem for a Beast (2007), writer-illustrator-musician Matt Ottley uses the figure of the Minotaur to explore the pain of monstrous pasts, personal and national.
Requiem For A Beast, by Matt Ottley. Hachette Australia (2007)
Requiem for a Beast is the story of a young stockman who confronts his own, his father’s and his country’s past. During a routine muster, he tracks down a magnificent bull that has evaded capture. He traps it in a ravine, where it falls and is badly wounded. Knowing that if he does not act, it will die a lingering death, the boy takes his knife and kills the bull.
Coming of age can mean confronting one’s demons, coming to terms with one’s past. And as the boy reflects on his encounter with the bull, his story is told through flashbacks: to his childhood, to learning of his father’s shameful story – he had been part of a group of men who had killed a young Aboriginal boy – and reflections about the Stolen Generation.
This book is shot through with iconic Australian imagery – the big sky, the harsh but beautiful landscape, the image of the drover and the muster. And linking them to the boy’s inner drama is the image of the Minotaur.
Otley anchors this specifically to a key memory from the boy’s childhood: visiting a museum with his father, they enter the mythology room, where the father explains the myth of the Minotaur.
What was it that happened that day? Why did that strange beast follow me – out of the museum and into the rest of my life? It hunted me, tracked me through the years, and slowly drew my spirit – who I was – from me until there was nothing left.
What indeed? What is Ottley’s Minotaur? A symbol of the repressed and repression? Of the violence of Australia’s past? A symbol of the demons teenagers face as they transition from childhood to adulthood, and come of age?
The book connects classical myth to the teenage experience, and also to the iconic myths and stories of Australian culture, while considering important national issues like the Stolen Generation. It runs the risk of imposing the standards of the Western canon onto the local context (as Erica Hately points out) yet it also shows the power of classical material to open up important discussions about our own culture.
A minotaur relaxes at Bondi beach. Nicole Grech, photograph by Bentley Smith, CC BY-NC-SA
Myth in our DNA
I’ve focused here on Medusas and Minotaurs. But Australian authors explore many other mythical beasts, engaging with their entertaining, fun and scary aspects.
Chasing Odysseus (The Hero Trilogy #1), by Sulari Gentill. Pantera Press (2011)
Geoffrey McSkimming’s energetic diesel-punk adventure series, Cairo Jim, exploits the resonant power of myths from Gorgons to Satyrs. Ian Trevaskis takes children back in time to help the ancient heroes fight ancient foes in Hopscotch: Medusa Stone.
Terry Denton finds the more cuddly aspects of the Minotaur in The Minotaur’s Maze (2004), while Phillip Gwynne turns Cerberus, the three-headed guard-dog to the underworld, into a computer program in Bring Back Cerberus (2013). And in The Zoo of Magical and Mythological Creatures (2009), Sam Bowring’s hero, Zackary, becomes the keeper of a whole zoo of magical creatures.
Sulari Gentill’s Hero Trilogy retells Homer’s Odyssey from the point of view of a girl called Hero. When I asked Gentill what it was about classical myth she thought connected to young readers, she said there was an engaging familiarity to them:
I suspect that there is a kind of DNA that classical/ancient myth has contributed to all the stories that have come after them in Western literature. Consequently there’s a strange familiarity to them even if one has never heard the particular legend before. They add to our appreciation of new stories and we feel a connection even if we don’t know why.
We might think that Medusa and the Minotaur are buried in the past. But they surface in the present surprisingly often: testing our bravery; challenging our ideas about monstrosity and danger; and revealing the continued influence of classical antiquity, and its power in literature for our young readers.
Both as an author and an academic I take children’s literature seriously – it’s my professional raison d’être. This doesn’t mean that I think it should be discussed in hushed tones, however, only that it shouldn’t be dismissed as trivial. Children’s authors are excellent writers – moreover, our earliest encounters with the written word colour all that follows, so anyone who takes books for adults seriously should take children’s literature seriously too.
I’m not the first to make this case. Once a generation, it seems, a cri de coeur goes out, in which a representative of the world of children’s literature speaks with revelatory authority to the literary establishment and makes it reassess the place of children’s books.
In 1968, the Times Literary Supplement invited Alan Garner, the author of The Owl Service to write about his approach. Garner argued that children are the most rewarding and demanding readers, pointedly saying of his next book: “If it is good enough, it will probably be for children”.
Likewise, in 1996, Philip Pullman began his Carnegie Medal acceptance speech by declaring: “There are some themes, some subjects, too large for adult fiction; they can only be dealt with adequately in a children’s book.” Like Garner, Pullman had written books rich with literary reference and intellectual scope. Both men were self-confident, Oxford-educated and could not easily be patronised. Both men were in a field of literature numerically dominated by women. People listened.
For a time, because of Pullman’s own novels and later those of J.K. Rowling, children’s books were everywhere. Some suggested that the distinction between children’s and adult literature was disappearing: titles appeared in child and adult editions – identical but for the jacket (and price). For the majority of mid-list children’s authors, however, things soon reverted to the status quo ante. Review space in national newspapers, briefly abundant, dried up, and advances reverted to pre-Potter levels.
Genre snobbery
When the former Children’s Laureate Julia Donaldson called for children’s books to be taken seriously in 2013, her plea formed part of a recognisable cycle in the world of children’s literature. First comes neglect, tinged with contempt, then a shock in the form of some literary event or articulate advocacy, then a slow backsliding.
Why does the literary world go through these spasms? Let’s look at a few unrelated snapshots, and see if we can build an identikit face:
It’s 2000 and Anthony Holden declares that if the Whitbread Prize is awarded to J.K. Rowling it will mean that the nation has refused to grow up. In the end it goes to an adventure story about dragons, monsters and buried treasure – Seamus Heaney’s Beowulf.
It’s the present day, and Amazon reviewers by the score choose to pay their favourite children’s book a “compliment” by declaring it “too good for children”.
Such instances aren’t just a matter of snobbery towards “genre fiction”. A man seen reading a thriller may be sneered at, but if he is seen reading “chicklit” his virility may be questioned too. Similarly, adults who read children’s literature are tainted with childishness. Does that decision to publish some books with adults’ and children’s jackets really show barriers being broken down? That some were prepared to pay an extra pound or two to avoid being seen reading a children’s book suggests otherwise.
Childhood ideals
Ultimately, disdain for children’s literature has less to do with the quality of the work than with the contradictory feelings adults have about children and childhood. These fall into two broad groups, the first of which can be summarised: “The more grown-up the better.” As St Paul put it: “When I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly: but then face to face” (I Cor 13.11).
The adult view is the real view; the child’s just an approximation. Applied to children’s literature, this leads to the belief that children’s books are literature with training wheels – and that those most nearly resembling adult books are the most worthwhile.
But this attitude coexists with its opposite too: think of Wordsworth’s vision of children trailing clouds of glory and dwindling into adulthood. Against St Paul we can recruit Jesus of Nazareth: “Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of heaven” (Mark 10.14).
John Tenniel’s original wood engraved illustration for Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Wikimedia/John Tenniel, CC BY
The idealisation of childhood is often held to have reached its zenith in children’s books of the early 20th century. But this view is actually tenacious – it lives on in the duty adults feel to shield children from adult knowledge, especially when it lurks between the covers of a book. Publishers and reviewers regularly let authors know that certain words and topics are out of bounds. Children must keep their innocence.
Despite opposition to these traditions, both continue to flourish – for both speak powerfully to adult fantasies. Children, and adults associated with children, are constantly buffeted in their cross-currents. If writers create a safe space sequestered from the wider world they are patronised for thumb sucking. But if they try not to be cosy, then they are corrupting the innocent youth who should be protected.
The battle to get children’s literature taken seriously will never be concluded, because so many adults are invested in not doing so. It would rob them of the comforting shibboleths they clutch like favourite toys: I am serious, you are trivial; I am adult, you are a child. I don’t say we should accept such opinions, but we should recognise that they will not go away. Taking children’s literature seriously is part of taking children seriously, and that is a lifetime’s work.
Children who fail to read regularly during long breaks from school will often see their reading ability drop. This is termed the “summer slide”.
Socio-economic status can be a factor – if a child’s household has fewer books to read, then they will have fewer authentic reading opportunities.
But those children who keep up their reading over the summer break are likely to see improvements in in their reading abilities, both in terms of what books they read and how often they interact with these texts.
Some methods of keeping kids engaged in reading are more effective than others.
For example, choosing a book that the child will simply enjoy or find entertaining, rather than treating it as a learning exercise, will more likely keep them interested in reading.
Here are some other ways to help your child enjoy reading over the summer break:
Think of books that will interest your child
Novelty books that incorporate fun into reading are a great way to engage younger readers with useful book-handling behaviours.
Books with interactive aspects such as pop-up displays, lift-up flaps and tactile elements are much more likely to immerse children, and sway them from the notion that “reading books is boring”.
Encouraging children to seek out books based on popular film and television programs is also a great way to extend their interests beyond watching the screen.
After reading parts of these books together, you can discuss with your child how the story varies between the visual and print versions and ask them which they prefer.
Use technology to engage and assist
Reading isn’t just limited to print books alone. Encouraging children to read books on electronic devices can be a way to engage otherwise reluctant children with reading.
Not only are these electronic copies often cheaper than hard-copy books, they also provide other useful features, such as reducing the “hard book” feeling for reluctant readers. Many reluctant readers feel anxious about reading thick books with small print. The eBook removes this as a concern as children can adjust the size of the font with ease and the physical size of the book is no longer a concern. Teachers are already embracing these features in their classrooms to provide engaging and useful reading experiences.
Researchers have demonstrated that struggling readers benefit from the additional features that eReaders provide, such as text to speech, where the eReader will electronically read the text out loud to the reader. Functions such as these are very useful in helping to fill in the gaps in childen’s understanding when they are reading an unknown text.
Read with your child every day
Regular reading routines are essential to developing effective reading habits.
Set aside a time every day when you and your child can read together, and another time when you can discuss your favourite parts of the book.
If you are reading with your child and they come to a word that they don’t know or aren’t sure of, remember the following simple rules:
Wait: Give your child a chance to figure out the word on their own. Don’t be the instant word factory and supply the word – help your child to be a resourceful reader by allowing them time to gather more information and clues.
Ask: Does that make sense? Does the picture give you a clue? Could you read on for more information? Asking these questions reminds your child of the different strategies they can use to figure out what the text is saying.
Then: If the child is still stuck on that word, ask them to skip it and read on. You can always drop that word into the conversation as you turn the page. This supplies the unknown word and has the added advantage of not shaming the child for being wrong.
One of the best gifts that you can give your child over the festive season is to spend time with them finding, sharing and exploring exciting books.
The books we remember strongly as adults are often the ones we read as children. Not only do we remember particular books, but the emotions we experienced.
Children’s books are reread and remembered over a lifetime, and many authors believe their best writing is for children.
Rereading favourites is a good thing. With each rereading, deeper meanings emerge and understanding becomes richer.
Reading books aloud, and being read to, is also important, with research pointing to enhanced levels of brain activity for children who are read to before bed. Some research even recommends reading to a child from birth to help stimulate brain development and build language, literacy and social-emotional skill.
For young people, reading fiction can provide excellent training for developing and practising empathy and understanding how others feel and think.
Here is a selection of some of the best books to share with your child over the festive season on the topic of family and friends:
Fox’s exuberant rhythm, rhyme and repetition feature in a short 148-word story, making it perfect read to aloud for babies. The book features eye-catching watercolour illustrations and a series of fun activities, including counting fingers and toes and an end game of a kiss on the nose.
(Frances Lincoln Children’s Books, 2014) Age: 0-6 years
A collection of nursery rhymes should be in every home. They are perfect for dipping into from birth and throughout the preschool years. This one features a multitude of enticing brief stories from different cultures, rhymes honed to perfection, and rich illustrations by 77 of the world’s best illustrators.
Bear and Chook are close friends, loving and patient with each other’s eccentricities. Bear is adventurous and accident-prone. Chook is cautious and careful. As friends, they have an immense respect for each other. A perfect combination of rollicking, rich and enticing read-aloud language and humorous, touching illustrations.
The text says little. The illustrations are minimal. Yet we experience an immense satisfaction in this deep friendship between Bird and Lion. Lion nurses Bird back to health after an injury, and they share winter together. With spring’s return, Bird must leave and Lion is alone again. The illustrations convey the seasonal cycle, and we cheer as Bird returns. A powerful story of friendship with perfect images that linger.
A highly original, quirky and funny story for sophisticated readers. Duncan reaches for his crayons, but instead finds they have left him handwritten letters. They have quit their jobs as crayons and complain bitterly. Purple laments Duncan colouring outside the lines. Grey is tired of colouring large objects like elephants. Black wants to be more than an outline. Duncan finds a clever solution to remain friends with his crayons.
An unlikely pair explore the meaning of friendship, loneliness and life in the big city in this unforgettable, multi-layered picture book. Herman, a crocodile, and Rosie, a deer, each lives alone on different floors of the same New York apartment block. They do not know each other, but they have common interests in music and both love films about the sea. Music brings them together when each loses their job. This story reveals the importance of friendship and belonging in understated elegance with quirky, whimsical illustrations.
A young girl arrives in Australia unable to speak English. She wraps herself in her familiar blanket woven with cultural familiarities. A girl in the park befriends her and together they share experiences and language. Gradually she relinquishes her blanket, realising that her culture comes from within. A moving story for exploring cultural similarities and differences.
Animalium explores the animal kingdom with clarity, precision, excitement and highly detailed illustrations. Excellent features include its large size, sumptuous layout, tantalising questions and answers, clever analogies, multi-layered information and detailed index. Seven sections cover brief differences and commonalities, environment, food and behaviour. A perfect coffee table book for sharing among the family.
Harry Potter appeals to all ages, making the series of seven books an ideal family sharing experience. The unique aspect of this book is its copious illustrations, which capture mood, magical moments, unique characters and above all a sense of other-worldliness. This illustrated edition is the perfect opportunity for families to share a reading aloud experience with bonus images.
His Dark Materials trilogy is a contemporary epic high-fantasy adventure with lyrical writing, highly original, memorable characters and a story with dazzling originality. It is the perennial story of pure evil and angelic good, of bravery and courage and inventive ideas rarely explored with such conviction and believability. A great book to share with the family.
As parents, we know how important it is to read to our children. Many families include this as a regular part of the bedtime routine.
While we feel confident this is contributing to our child’s literacy development, new research shows that this nightly routine could also be used to help improve maths skills.
How reading can help your child learn maths
The study by researchers in the US gave 587 students in year 1 (between 6 and 7 years old) tablets featuring an app with short passages to read with their parents.
Parents would read these passages with their child and then answer questions based on the text. Families used the app on average 4 times a week between the Autumn and Spring of 2013-14.
One group read stories which contained a mathematical focus, which allowed children and their parents to discuss maths in a natural way and complete simple problems together.
Each passage came with five questions ranging in difficulty from preschool to fifth-grade level and covered topics including counting and arithmetic, fractions, geometry and probability.
There was also an additional bank of questions for families who wished to explore the passage further. Families could complete as many questions as they were comfortable with after reading the story.
A second, comparison group read the same passage with the specific maths content removed and answered questions which focused on recalling facts, inferring information and spelling.
The results were overwhelming.
The students were tested before and at the end of the study and those who read the maths stories, adapted from the Bedtime Math app, showed significant improvement in their overall mathematics learning during the year.
When comparing the children in each group who used the app most frequently, the study saw a three month advancement in maths achievement for those who read the maths-focused stories.
Helping parents boost their confidence in maths
Research shows that parents tend to place more importance on language learning than on mathematical development when their children are young. A reason for this could be that parents don’t feel as comfortable with teaching maths, compared to literacy.
But research shows that when parents are stressed about maths, their children learn less mathematics over the school year and can also develop the same negative feelings towards the subject.
Children who feel anxious about maths are also less likely to engage in the classroom and will avoid mathematical tasks.
This avoidance leads to missed learning opportunities and a greater sense of potential failure.
Once the cycle has begun, it can be hard to redirect this momentum.
While the research focused on stories designed for an electronic device, the findings highlight some key points for parents.
Sharing stories with a mathematical focus, and the discussions which are then created, can contribute to an increase in achievement at school.
For parents who are struggling with their own mathematical anxieties, this comes as welcome news. The study goes on to suggest that this sharing of stories and discussing maths with our children, can help parents become less anxious in this space.
The federal Government recently committed $6.4m to support the development of maths resources for students. This forms a part of the government’s agenda to improve the teaching of science, technology, engineering and maths subjects in our schools.
So how can parents use books to help improve their child’s maths skills? Here are some suggestions:
Reading tips for parents
Read books with mathematical concepts to your children.
In some books the content is obvious – we are all familiar with Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar.
Try reading these as well:
365 Penguins by Jean-Luc Fromental
Leaping lizards by Stuart Murphy
Math for all seasons: Mind-stretching Maths Riddles by Greg Tang
My Grandmother’s Clock by Geraldine McCaughrean
Consider asking your local librarian for some other ideas. Look for books with amusing pictures and colourful illustrations – we know how this attracts children to read.
Talk about the book with your child, as you would with any other story.
The mathematical elements will naturally come into the conversation and should be encouraged – this will help children to see maths as part of everyday life.
By simply including books which include mathematical concepts in nighttime routines, parents can feel more confident that they are contributing to the mathematical development of their child outside the classroom at the same time as creating a less stressful environment for discussing mathematics.
Kylie will be taking part in an Ask An Expert Q&A on Twitter from noon to 1pm on Thursday, November. Head over to Twitter and post your questions about learning and teaching maths using #AskAnExpert.
Kylie Robson, Clinical Teaching Specialist – Mathematics and Literacy Education, Faculty of ESTeM, University of Canberra, University of Canberra
As parents know all too well, children love to re-read their favourite books over and over again.
While this may feel painfully repetitive to adults, there is something in the text that is bringing children back time after time.
Children benefit greatly from re-reading as they learn the rhyming or predictable pattern of the text – rather than spending that time trying to understand what the book’s about.
Research shows that repeated reading of favourite books can boost vocabulary by up to 40%.
But this is only truly beneficial when the text is read aloud.
Research shows that when preschool children are frequently read to, their brain areas supporting comprehension and mental imagery are highly engaged. Studies show that this helps with the development of reading skills, such as word recognition, when they start to learn to read.
By assisting our children to develop these skills, we’re ensuring that they know that text conveys a message, and to read on for more information when they get stuck on a word.
And it’s never too early to start reading aloud to your children. Australian author and literacy studies professor Mem Fox says reading to children from birth can help develop a love for and understanding of books.
Need more convincing? Here are five ways that reading aloud can benefit your child:
1. Improves fluency
Fluency when reading is essential in order to build strong and confident readers. But it can frequently be misinterpreted as relating only to reading speed alone.
Researcher Timothy Rasinski highlights the “bridge” that fluency plays in between word recognition and understanding what the book is about. He highlights the way that reading fluently at a natural reading speed helps to ensure that comprehension is maintained when reading.
When you share a book with your child, they get to see good reading modelled for them. They establish a sense of the speed and prosody that is essential to fluent reading. This then aids in their comprehension of the story.
To help your child hear themselves as a fluent reader, choose a favourite book, and take it in turns reading a sentence, such as in the style of echo reading, where you might read a sentence or a page first then your child repeats the same part.
Hearing themselves as confident and fluent readers allows children to break out of the struggling reader mindset where every book is a challenge.
2. Expands vocabulary knowledge
Research shows that possessing a broad vocabulary is essential to making sure that children have access to a range of different words with different meanings.
It makes sense that the more words that children know when reading independently, the more they’ll enjoy what they’re reading.
While vocabulary lessons are taught in schools, parents can also assist in helping their children learn new words at home by reading favourite books aloud.
Before reading a book for the first time, flick through the pages with your child. Look for any interesting words that your child might not have seen before. Talk about what these words mean and where they may have seen them before.
3. Helps comprehension
Successful reading is all about making sense of what we’re reading.
As adults, if we don’t quite understand something that we’ve just read, the first thing that we tend to do is to go back and reread.
This is a vital skill that we need to encourage in our children to help them become self sufficient readers.
Reading aloud provides the means by which to clearly take about what is happening in the book and to practice this rereading skill.
The conversations about what the book is about can take place before reading with your child in order to predict what might happen. Discussions during and after reading are also usual in clarifying what your children have just read.
4. Involves family members
Fathers and other significant males in a child’s life play a vital role in encouraging their children to be active readers at home.
While mothers do tend to spend more time with their children and often take on reading as a part of this experience, research demonstrates clear benefits when dads, uncles, grandfathers and male friends read with children.
Dads are often seen as the untapped resource when it comes to reading with their children and they frequently provide a different range of experiences, especially when reading aloud.
This might be through using different funny voices and even the content that is read together.
5. Brings the fun back into reading
As any avid reader knows there are few things better in life than curling up with a favourite book and not wanting to put it down.
Sharing this experience with your child is a valuable way to get them on the path to loving books as well.
Consider taking home a new book from the bookstore or library and selling this to your child.
Try talking about the pictures, look at interesting words and predict what might happen before reading together.
When you are reading the book aloud for the first time, use different voices for each character.
Forget the Mozart Effect and Baby Einstein, take it easy on acquisitions for your two-year-old’s private library, and don’t fret if your three-year-old hasn’t started violin lessons just yet.
The key to unlocking a child’s potential intelligence and happiness may indeed lie in music, but succumbing to the commercial juggernaut that is the baby-genius-making industry may not be in either your child or your wallet’s best interest.
Instead, try making up songs with your toddler. A new study suggests that regular informal music-making with very young children may even have benefits above and beyond those of reading.
But there’s an important, interesting, and somewhat beautiful catch – for best results, make it shared music-making in your home.
In an analysis of data generated from a study involving more than 3,000 children, a University of Queensland team investigated the associations between informal home music education for very young children and later cognitive and social-emotional outcomes.
The team found that informal music-making in the home from around the ages of two and three can lead to better literacy, numeracy, social skills, and attention and emotion regulation by the age of five.
By measuring the impact of music and reading both separately and in combined samples, the researchers were able to identify benefits from informal music activity over and above shared book reading, most strongly in relation to positive social behaviour, attention regulation and to a lesser but still significant extent, numeracy.
Part of an Australian Research Council funded study titled “Being and becoming musical: towards a cultural ecological model of early musical development”, the study aims to provide a comprehensive account of how Australian families use music in their parenting practices and make recommendations for policy and practice in childcare and early learning and development.
Last month, the team was awarded the inaugural Music Trust Award for Research into the Benefits of Music Education.
Music and its relationship to mental and social development has long captured the attention of parents, researchers, even philosophers.
Science has shown that music’s effect on the brain is particularly strong, with studies demonstrating an improvement in IQ among students who receive music lessons. Advantages in the classroom have been identified for students who study musical instruments, and the effects of ageing on cognition may even be mitigated through lifelong musical activity.
So how is this study different, apart from its focus on early childhood?
Crucially, its findings are based on situations where the child’s musical activities were informal and shared, typically with a parent – essentially a playful social experience.
Simple and fun musical activities can have enormous power in developing numeracy and literacy: try improvising a counting song, or making up new rhymes to familiar tunes.
But the true power of musical play lies in the unique blend of creativity, sound and face-to-face interaction; the learning is strengthened by its basis in a positive, empathic emotional relationship.
Parents are increasingly enrolling very young children in specialist music classes – undoubtedly a positive development. Reading, however, is rarely “outsourced” in this way, and this study suggests that parents should feel encouraged and empowered in tapping their own inner musician before looking outside the home.
As with most aspects of parenting (in my personal non-scientific experience), there is no substitute for a parent’s personal involvement, even if it involves long-forgotten modes of behaviour such as taking simple pleasure in making sounds.
Being playful with sound is something we’re all born with – indeed, toddlers are humanity’s greatest virtuosos in that regard – yet too many are silenced over the years by the “better seen than heard” brigade.
It’s no accident that we talk about “playing” a musical instrument; a turn of phrase that too easily becomes sadly ironic if formal music lesson structures calcify into strictures.
So recapturing a sense of play (if you’re an adult) is crucial to the process of shared music-making, and this research invites parents to focus on the element of “playing” music with toddlers, using any tools at hand.
The human voice is a great place to start, and the kitchen cabinet contains a wealth of percussion instruments. Whistles and bells could be the next step, followed by a toy piano for more ambitious stage parents.
Long before conventional music lessons start, jam sessions with your toddler (not of the messy sticky preserved fruit variety) can be an enormous developmental asset.
You might even find it a two-way street – if children can teach adults anything, it’s how to play. So take the time, play with your child, and “play” music together.
Along with the newly-confirmed bonus benefits for baby, you’ll both be connected to music: a fundamental component of a happy and healthy life.
At the BookShelf 
You must be logged in to post a comment.