{"id":433,"date":"2014-01-09T21:14:06","date_gmt":"2014-01-09T21:14:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kamillamilligan.com\/2014-01-09-my-biases-in-the-childrens-literature-genre\/"},"modified":"2014-01-09T21:14:06","modified_gmt":"2014-01-09T21:14:06","slug":"2014-01-09-my-biases-in-the-childrens-literature-genre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kamillamilligan.com\/index.php\/2014\/01\/09\/2014-01-09-my-biases-in-the-childrens-literature-genre\/","title":{"rendered":"My biases in the children&#8217;s literature genre"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As I mentioned yesterday, there are things I love and things I don&#8217;t in children&#8217;s books. Here are a few of these:<br \/>\nDon&#8217;t like:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Counting books (usually too didactic &amp; repetitive)<\/li>\n<li>Books that try to teach (colours, numbers, pretty much anything), particularly the authorless &#8220;educational&#8221; ones like Baby Einstein &#8230; shudder<\/li>\n<li>Sarcasm and adult humour (so jading for children!)<\/li>\n<li>Focusing on &#8220;are you good?&#8221;, punishments and\/or &#8220;consequences&#8221; (Berenstein Bears books are bad for this) as these feel way too manipulative<\/li>\n<li>Male-centric or non-gender equal texts (note: this doesn&#8217;t mean that every book needs a female carpenter or a working mother, but please, try to transcend gender stereotypes a bit. And write about girls: they have adventures too!)<\/li>\n<li>When things have to fall apart too far (e.g., the first half of the book is a big fight) before they get better, and the getting better part isn&#8217;t very well-developed or long<\/li>\n<li>Leveled reading books, with their corresponding lack of any literary value (some exceptions, notably the Elephant &amp; Piggie series by Mo Willems)<\/li>\n<li>A good portion of computer-generated illustrations and some mixed media (nothing wrong with these, but I just don&#8217;t enjoy the juxtaposition, for example, of fabric samples with photos with computer art. Mo Willems &amp; the Knuffle Bunny books are again an exception)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>What I love:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Real art for the illustrations, in widely varying styles<\/li>\n<li>Humour<\/li>\n<li>Stories with a twist, imaginative adventures, and\/or a focus on relationships, friendship &amp; family<\/li>\n<li>Stories about girls and women<\/li>\n<li>Evocations of home and family<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In summary: I love real stories, put together with care and skill, that see children as imaginative and discerning readers. I shy away from books that seem designed to manipulate children&#8217;s behaviour or act as disguised rote learning activities, put together on the quick and cheap.<\/p>\n<p>Long live children&#8217;s literature!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As I mentioned yesterday, there are things I love and things I don&#8217;t in children&#8217;s books. Here are a few of these: Don&#8217;t like: Counting books (usually too didactic &amp; repetitive) Books that try to teach (colours, numbers, pretty much anything), particularly the authorless &#8220;educational&#8221; ones like Baby Einstein &#8230; shudder Sarcasm and adult humour [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"saved_in_kubio":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kamillamilligan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kamillamilligan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kamillamilligan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kamillamilligan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kamillamilligan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kamillamilligan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kamillamilligan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kamillamilligan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kamillamilligan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}