February 05, 2006
Reading for kids
In yet more evidence of the breakdown of Western civilization, the plague of celebrities authoring, or least putting their names to, children's books continues.
The oddest new entry is by bloviated Democratic politician Ted Kennedy. With no apparent sense of irony, it features his real dog named... Splash. The theme, however, is all too familiar.
Meanwhile, in Great Britain, the Royal Society of Literature recently asked various prominent authors to recommend their top ten books for children. J.K. Rowling, Philip Pullman, and poet laureate Andrew Motion all recommended both classics and personal favorites.
All too typically, others utterly failed the test, unable and even unwilling to come up with any advice for the young. Nick Hornby dismissed the idea as a waste of time intended for the undeserving.
"I used to teach in a comprehensive school and I know from experience that many children are not capable of reading the books I wanted them to read," he said."I think any kind of prescription of this kind is extremely problematic."
Oliver Kamm is appalled.
In short, there are prominent and prize-winning authors who are incompetent to deal with children and do not understand what books are for. The power of literature lies not in its faithfulness of description of a world that readers are familiar with, but in its illumination of enduring human concerns.Good writers retain popularity not because of arbitrary pedagogical preference but because they see more, and better. The notion that children on a stereotypical inner-city council estate would fail, because of their background, to be enriched by Dickens or Defoe is worse than an impoverishment of the imagination. It is snobbery.
Some would call it the "soft bigotry of low expectations."
Posted by Alan at February 5, 2006 09:57 AM