Reiterates some of the major tenets of reader-response theory. Describes the "writerly" text as a source of activity rather than of meaning, and examines Gary Paulsen's "The Winter Room" as an example of the active writerly text. (SR)

Compares responses of readers (both children and adults) of Maurice Sendak's "trilogy" ("Where the Wild Things Are,""In the Night Kitchen," and "Outside over There") to Sendak's own explanation of his intent. Suggests that Sendak offers an original, fresh, and magical expression that immediately reaches many…

Reviews five sets of thematically related books with the intent of helping instructors make connections between children's literature and real living. Investigates five areas, all broadly speaking to the issue of "security": (1) unsettling experiences; (2) nature study; (3) overcoming evil; (4) exploring adolescent angst; (5) journeying for…

Describes four books written for children about the struggles to survive, to escape, and to gain freedom of children who are refugees. Describes how fourth-grade children responded to these books. (SR)

Considers the stories that children read, hear, and make part of their lives. Focuses on the text with the understanding that texts live only when read by a person in a particular context. (MG)

Examines the key role that memory plays in the meaning-making process that children enact as they read and view images in a classroom that respects and encourages their own views and reflections. Discusses the six major categories of children's visual responses, and presents representative examples of children's illustrations. (TB)

Describes how a teachers uses children's literature to immerse students in the living past. Presents students' poems and excerpts from student journals to document students' reactions to using historical fiction in the classroom. (RS)

Describes the responses of children in kindergarten through second grade to reading aloud. Finds a proclivity toward a wide range of play with the action, sound, and rhythm of language related to the book's content. Suggests that verbal exclamations such as laughter, changing facial expressions, and imitative gestures are legitimate features of…

Presents a project where the teacher, rather than teaching the students how to read using a remedial, isolated skills approach, concerned herself with getting them to read by "falling into the literature" and getting involved in the characters' lives. Describes a reader response approach that was designed to motivate the students to engage with…

Outlines an elementary school unit on rivers, which drew on a range of reading materials both fiction and nonfiction, among them "The Incredible Journey of Lewis and Clark." Studies the degree of similarity in fourth graders' response to and understanding of fiction and nonfiction books. Observes that children do have unique responses to…

Explores the responses of a range of adults (all five Pueblo Indians) to one children's book, "Arrow to the Sun," based on a Pueblo Indian tale and written by a non-Indian. Discusses concerns for accuracy, authenticity, and sensitivity. Finds widely differing responses to the book among Eastern and Western Pueblo members. Reconsiders pedagogies,…

Explains how a teacher comes to learn that primary and intermediate grade students are engaged by fiction and nonfiction both, that they do not associate one with pleasure and the other with learning. Argues that readers of all ages find meaning in a work, fictional or nonfictional, to the extent that it relates to their own lives and experiences.…

Addresses the question of how literature should be discussed with children. Illustrates how a knowledge of literature beyond a single story and beyond a particular child's response can be of help in teaching. (SR)

Discusses one seven-year-old girl's responses to three feminist folktales. Finds that for each tale, the girl was drawn to the female protagonist and named her as her favorite character, but the girl did not wish to emulate the female protagonists because of their unconventionality. Suggests that such tales may offer alternative models of female…

Argues that the primary value of literature lies within the work itself, an appreciation of it, and the connections readers make to it. Discusses how a reader response approach offers one way to open the door for children to the lived-through experience of literature as art with intrinsic value. (SR)