/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.13486195]

>Children’s fiction is impossible, not in the sense that it cannot be written (that would be nonsense), but in that it hangs on an impossibility, one which it rarely ventures to speak. This is the impossible relation between adult and child […] Children’s fiction sets up a world in which the adult comes first (author, maker, giver) and the child comes after (reader, product, receiver), but where neither of them enter the space in between
>(Jacqueline Rose).

Explore Rose’s statement. Do you agree? How does the relationship between the adult writer and the child reader play out in children’s literature?

[Anonymous No.13486208]

There is no space in-between. There is a purgatory between adulthood and childhood, called adolescence, indeed; but though the lower level cannot peer into the wisdom of the age that is to come, that does not mean that the elder cannot replace themselves in the mindset of their past.

This doesn't even begin to get into the uestion of what one believes is the purpose of children's literature. The normie says to entertain. The elite, to educate. The establishment, to condition.

[Anonymous No.13486215]

To be honest I don't get his critique.
Aren't most good children's books inspired by children so closing the age gap in a way?

[Anonymous No.13486615]

>>13486208
Yeah anon, we really do live in a society.

Jesus fucking christ.

[Anonymous No.13486627]

>>13486195
You must first facilitate the reason to read, then support the child's own reading skill. How is this that difficult? You read to them first, then when they attempt to read the work they know what it is they are reading so they can be sure they are reading correctly?

[Anonymous No.13487431]

>>13486195
She's right and based

[Anonymous No.13487460]

>that prompt
are we doing your homework

[Anonymous No.13487859]

>>13486215
Brainlet.
When adults write children's literature they write books for other adults, not for children. Why? Because the first person to read it some corporate suit (an adult) at some publishing house. Then more adults at distributors and booksellers and parents. Adults which books and which books don't reach children. For a book to reach a child it has to pass the approval of several adults. So authors must firstly, appeal to these adults notions of childhood, not to the children themselves.