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The Power of Mediocre Children’s Fiction
Reach back in your mind to the time when you emerged as an independent reader. You could choose your own material, and didn’t have to rely on others to read it for you. What stories did you prefer? For some of us, the books that drew us in weren’t sophisticated. In fact, there’s a good chance the books you’re recalling were formulaic series that publishers cranked out at high volume. Although it’s tempting for parents to steer their children toward richer literature, there is a case to be made that you actually derived benefit from your obsession with Superman comics or your seven weeks in a row of checking out Babysitters Club books.
Students who learn ably to read and write early on, and then build on that knowledge exponentially throughout their education, are ones who enter Kindergarten already primed with a large vocabulary. This vocabulary development comes from regular conversation with loved ones at home, life experiences such as outdoor walks and petting zoos, playtime with other children, and hearing books read aloud.
With such a stimulating and varied daily life, children build a network of long-term memories through which to interpret anything new they come across. The more they know — the greater number of connections they formed — the faster new information is meaningfully processed and assimilated. A child’s knowledge can be expressed and demonstrated in terms of vocabulary, words with their attendant associations and indication of familiarity with a domain. Any book that increases that word-hoard, filling out familiar concepts and introducing new ideas, strengthens the mental network and thus lays the groundwork for further learning. In sum, reading mediocre children’s fiction makes you smart.
Learning new words in context is difficult; the research tells us that we have to encounter the word many times before it becomes part of our vocabulary. When you were lounging with that middling story back ten, twenty, thirty years ago or more, you were grappling with words and their associations, creating mental layers that now give precision, depth, and clarity to your communication. Furthermore, our brains give favored status to stories, lending the takeaways from your reading extra vibrance and permanence.
A strong vocabulary builder was, in my case, the Nancy Drew series. I didn’t read all of them, but I did binge on them occasionally in my preteen years. They were especially beneficial for me as someone who hadn’t fully lived in American culture. I could learn and experience it second hand through these works and others.
Nancy was a character who had it all — looks, smarts, boyfriend, confidence, a car. Her father was a handsome lawyer, and wealthy. Anytime Nancy needed to go somewhere to solve a mystery, she and her friends could pack and be whisked to an exciting new destination. Nancy could pick up on any new skill immediately — acting, playing tennis. Circumstances always ended well for her and criminals were always apprehended. Nevertheless, this character took me places and showed me new things I would not otherwise have come upon for some time.
The first Nancy Drew book I picked up was Clue of the Whistling Bagpipes. I was eight and was absorbing all the newness of my first semester of boarding school. This book with the pretty young woman on the cover, playing bagpipes in a kilt — I think I already had bagpipes, Scottish, kilt in my head — was a promising read. Next was Password to Larkspur Lane. That one I remember for its introduction to the ideas of nursing home, visiting hours, perhaps password. (Really? Hospitals in America had only certain hours when you could visit? Picky and strict!)
Other words acquired from the series were as varied as Nancy’s adventures: amateur, phantom, titian-haired, kachina dolls, false bottom (as in a secret compartment). There was a criminal with pale blue eyes that startled me to contemplate pale blue eyes as perhaps being pretty, but in this case meant to confer more creepiness on the bad guy. I had thought blue eyes were desirable. I also less consciously absorbed the idea of describing a character’s physical traits to indicate the non-tangibles. I still reflect on pale blue eyes occasionally, especially when I see examples of what the writer must have been thinking.
Just a survey of vintage Nancy Drew titles shows the enormous variety of ideas young readers encountered: Stagecoach, dragon, mannequin, locket, quest, ranch, tolling, moonstone, ivory, sapphire. The attractive covers, the range of settings and contexts, the fast-paced narrative with suspenseful chapter endings, and the scary parts gave rich meaning to the words and a permanent place for them in their minds.
Published in General
What a wonderful thread, and what an unexpected premise.
I agree. What a great party Sawatdeeka has thrown. :)
Hardy Boys, Bobbsey Twins, a Hitchcock series that had a outline of him between chapters(can’t remember series name)…. Did anyone read the red biographic books on people like kit Carson, Daniel Boone…..
Woah. There’s a book series called Merivale Mall?!
Merivale Mall is the name of (one of) the mall(s) in my home town. Been there for, like, forever.
This can’t be a coincidence.
(I also attended Merivale Public School…)
It is a very good book.
Childhood of Famous Americans series.
“Childhood of Famous Americans series.”
Maybe, but I recall all the books I read were red (covers were kind of a darker rose red with black typeface). The stories weren’t complete biographies but we’re done in story format. I searched last night for some photos of the books but couldn’t find them.
Here I am. I didn’t get grounded; we went over to friends’ for dinner. I’ve heard it’s not nice to check the Internet as a dinner guest. ;-)
Then the next morning was church, then I came home and spent an hour fixing a meal, then I flopped down on the couch and kept checking Ricochet while trying to convince myself to do a huge pile of dishes. By the time I’d worked through the dishes, younger daughter and I hung out together for a chunk of the evening. Then older daughter went to bed and my computer is in her room.
So I’ve been here reading and “liking” comments–as if I listened to your conversations while nodding and smiling. A quiet hostess.
If mediocre lit. has its benefits, there is even more to gain from classics. Sometimes kids need the mediocre lit. stage first, or enjoy them in tandem with classics.
My mother read us the Narnia series to us twice. Before that, she read Winnie the Pooh aloud, and poetry (poetry helps small children distinguish sounds they are hearing in preparation for reading). (cont.)
When I was reading on my own, I read whatever we had around. We had boxes of used Scholastic books sent to us. My mom ordered Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys paper backs (Hardy Boys–limestone). I also re-read the Narnia books several times, read The Hobbit, and enjoyed what I could understand of Lord of the Rings and James Herriot.
I also liked Beverly Cleary and Anne of Green Gables, both of which had been sent as birthday gifts. It took me awhile to get hooked on Anne, because the first chapter was extended description like nothing I’d ever encountered, but I was assured it was a wonderful book–and it was.
A teacher I sub for has her fourth graders read Secret Garden. It is a challenging book for them, and they start tiring halfway through or so, but the benefits outweigh the struggle. There are so many layers to that story–historical, literary, etc. that the students mature in front of your eyes.
Hey, we had Happy Hollisters. Those books got us playing with surnames of families we knew–Merry Myers, Joyful Jordans, etc.
I think there is a line between mediocre children’s lit. and trash. Parents do need to know what is in the books their kids are reading. I struggled with Judy Blume’s content even as a kid. And as an adult, I re-read lines out of Fourth Grade Nothing and compared the flow and narrative to Beverly Cleary’s. Blume’s work really is mediocre, while Clearly gave us high quality material with her character development and story-telling.
I second this. It seems like there are so many strong British-y novels written from the late 1800’s to 1940’s or so. 101 Dalmations also deserves classic status. Not sure that I read a full E. Nesbit story, and I keep hearing about others on this thread (such as Phantom Tollbooth) that I never got around to reading. We have Nesbit and Tollbooth at our house, so I should give them a try.
Going back to crank-outs, I used to enjoy Enid Blyton–both her fantasies and adventure stories.
I couldn’t imagine building a class around these books, but could see using them as fun supports for subject area study. I just found out that these books come with non-fiction companion publications.
I could see using them as a fun way to introduce the study units with independent reading, then teaching the history of the period/event in a guided class, noting how things relate back to the story or where the story was wrong. But certainly not as a study text itself.
Having students identify where the books were in error would be an effective way for them to learn.
And generally kids like to show off how other people are wrong, so they enjoy the learning more than normal. :)
Yep.
It could also lead to a discussion of the most reliable sources.
Nor has reading made me smarter, but it has made me better informed and exposed me to kinds of thinking that I may not have run into under any other method. I know more, and sometimes I know how to employ that knowledge.
Well, I was reading the newspaper in first grade. I would read the front page banners, then turn to the comics. I also bought and read comic books about Superman and Batman and others. They brought adventure into my life.
My sister got hooked by Nancy Drew, but I had the great good fortune to become addicted to a set of Mark Tidd adventures in the eccentric family library. Clarence Budington Kelland is pretty thoroughly forgotten, but from what I can remember he didn’t make mediocre kids’ books, no matter what he said about himself (“best second-rate writer in America”). Let’s see, a hero who’s a stuttering fat-boy genius named Marcus Aurelius Fortunatus Tidd by his inventor father who having invented a gas turbine spends his time reading Gibbon and fending off patent thieves. Or so he says. It’s not until the reader is 23 or so that he figures out the Dad probably drank. Worthy of Nabokov. Plus the stories are all from the point of view of one of Mark’s normal-kid pals. Not flashy, but definitely not pedestrian. And not mediocre.
Links have finally been added to the post. These writers are worth your time.
Besides the Hardy Boys, I also caught the history bug by reading several of the American Landmark books. I still have my favorites on my bookshelf today.
Oh, looking these up now!!! I have a little boy, and am so excited to introduce him to boy reading. I know it is too much to hope he will love Nancy Drew and Anne of Green Gables as much as I!
As do we all? :)
Speaking again of Anne of Green Gables, we are now into chapter six, “Marilla Makes Up Her Mind,” in our evening read-aloud.
Somehow two weeks ago I missed a bunch of these comments. Thanks Sawatdeeka and Amy — I love your comments on my Magic Treehouse question. I completely agree.