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  • Sophisticated Reading for Children:The Experience of the Classical Jewish Academy
  • Leonard R. Mendelsohn (bio)

The boom in publishing books for children might prompt the conclusion that there is substantial and healthy interest in childhood. More likely, this abundance is but another symptom of future shock, which having invaded the nursery now threatens to lay waste the whole domain of childhood. True, there has never been a greater legion of writers catering to children, and it is also a fact that virtually any discipline, whether it be oceanography, x-ray technology, or aerodynamics, has produced its simplified summaries for introduction into the children's hour. Far from being geared to the mind of the child, as one would naturally assume, these tomes for tots are often part of a misconceived effort to speed his entrance into an adult world in which the child is presumed to be alien. Books now provide veritable primer introductions not only to technological marvels but also to social problems such as drug abuse and unwed motherhood. The appearance of such subjects in toyland is presumably supported by the rationale that early exposure to social dilemmas will facilitate a transition from childish fantasy to adult reality.

Behind these reflections of a push towards a more readily accessible maturity lies the assumption, however unconscious or concealed, that childhood is a state of incapacity. Though Chukovsky and Piaget among others have convincingly demonstrated the rigorous logic underlying the child's view of the world, and although the creative work of children has furnished numerous examples of considerable insight and understanding, the notion persists that childhood is little more than a fanciful pause prior to the serious pursuit of later years. Thus books designed for children are implicitly directed to the goal of gradually sophisticating the toddler, hopefully weaning him from his intellectual invalidity to a premature footing among matters astute.

The concern for graduated doses of sophistication in children's literature is at best unnecessary and wasteful of energies, and at worst it is acutely detrimental to children whose diet is childish books. Much adult reading material, or, more properly, reading matter principally directed to adults, is far more accommodating to the child's world than many juvenile adaptations. Children, after all, are co-occupants of the same world as the adult. Though they view the world with a different outlook, they nonetheless see it with cunning and creativity. For an author to attempt to duplicate this perspective is often as foolish as it is presumptuous. Furthermore, it is not at all necessary. The child has his own set of eyes, and he doesn't need Dr. Seuss or anyone else to induce imaginative observation. What is needed is material which might be productive to his intellect, [End Page 35] material capable of delighting him in his present state of mind, expanding with his growth and facilitating his moods and desires. More likely than not such material is to be found in reading matter directed primarily towards adults.

Using sophisticated reading material as children's literature approximates roughly the method used by classical Jewish academies for several millennia. In these academies, every effort is made to bring together the child and the text, but there is no desire to transplant the brain of the adult into the mind of the child. On the other hand, the teacher, ideally a competent scholar in his own right, does not presume to adopt the outlook of the child. His task, simply stated, is to introduce to a child a body of essential material. The material itself is seen as possessing elasticity which will apply to his present world and which will also extend to the world of his parents and teachers. Thus with no fear of traumas brought on by sabotaged childhoods, classical Jewish academies from Babylon to Brooklyn have almost uniformly adopted as their primary texts the Pentateuch, the Prophetic writings, the Mishna and Gemora (Talmud), the Siddur (prayer book) and the Shulchan Aruch (Code of Jewish Law)—all works of considerable subtlety and sophistication, all unabridged, and all presented in their original languages.

These works are used both as primers and as post-Rabbinic texts, with no alteration in...

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