Stories, pictures and reality. Two children tell (review)
- Stories, pictures and reality. Two children tell
United Kingdom
Virginia Lowe's fascinating study of her own children's interactions with books from birth to eight years of age continues and extends the handful of existing book-length studies by other parents or grandparents. Lowe places herself in this tradition, while also communicating something new and fresh. For example, the children in the previous studies were all girls, whereas Lowe's is the first to consider the development of her son Ralph, as well as her daughter Rebecca. Lowe also has more data than any of the other studies; her journals total over 6000 pages, and continue until the children left home at eighteen. Further, and most importantly, Lowe's book is unified by one overarching subject: the ways children understand the complex relationships between fiction and reality. In the first three chapters, Lowe contextualizes her study by explaining its methodology, the family environment, and the children's book behavior as infants. Chapters four through eleven address various aspects of the fiction/reality distinction. Both words and illustrations are considered, as well as the gradual realization that both verbal texts and visual images are created by someone. The issue [End Page 57] of how the children "identified" with characters and actions in the stories is explored, and Lowe makes her own contribution to the psychological research about "theory of mind": children's growing awareness that other people think and have different perspectives and thoughts about the world. Through this detailed and intimate look at her son and daughter, the Australian scholar presents a compelling and well-documented case for appreciating the marvellous insights that young children bring to literature. She argues persuasively that her naturalistic methodology (in contrast to the clinical settings of many psychological studies of child development) results in understanding that many of children's cognitive and social abilities may occur much earlier than was previously thought.
Lawrence R. Sipe, associate professor in the Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania, held a research fellowship at the International Youth Library from March until May 2009.
