Ways of Knowing: Literature and the Intellectual Life of Children (review)

Frances Clarke Sayers once described children’s literature, with thousands of new titles published annually, as a field beset by “muchness” (1956). Kay Vandergrift and the fourteen other essayists in Ways of Knowing find the infinite variety of this ever-burgeoning field more blessing than besetment. Add interactive CD-ROMs and online resources to the myriad books available in every category for all ages and you have “the best possible resources for children to help them see the world from varying standpoints” (viii).

Vandergrift calls children’s literature “a vital contributor to the development of all the multiple intelligences as described by Howard Gardner and others” (viii). Of course, anyone familiar with her work will realize that Professor Vandergrift refers here to superior children’s literature. Sayers decried the mass production of mediocre fare in her discussion of “muchness.” The fifteen essays in Ways of Knowing are liberally studded with examples of children’s literature; throughout, qualified critics are selective, providing evidence—through their examples of works and their analyses of them—that they know this broad field and what’s best in it.

As varied as its subject, Ways of Knowing “brings to readers the voices of those who discuss literature and ways of knowing from a variety of perspectives” (viii). This is something of an understatement. Not only is the editor’s conception comprehensive, it is also highly original, the creation of a design of disparate parts, some fitting into the whole with more obvious ease than do others. The book brings together an unusual, even unlikely, mix of voices and viewpoints: an art teacher in an elementary school; children’s librarians; reference librarians; a library director; a collection of college professors who hail from settings as diverse as DeVry Technical Institute, Rutgers University, and Queens College of the City University of New York; media specialists; a dance movement therapist; a children’s book author; and researchers whose interests cover a range of subjects, including technology and education, learning outside of schools, children’s books dealing with death, the relationship between quilt-making and storytelling, and feminist literary criticism.

Readers will recognize with pleasure the names of many of the essayists. Several are contributors to Mosaics of Meaning: Enhancing the Intellectual Life of Young Adults through Story, a companion volume also edited by Kay Vandergrift. A number of authors in Ways of Knowing, including Vandergrift herself, are well-published authorities in their various specialties. I regret that among this distinguished assemblage of experts there is no one speaking for and about filmed literature for children, but obviously no single book can cover every “way of knowing.”

In the Introduction, Professor Vandergrift suggests how the essays connect. Four focus on the aesthetic growth of children: Geraldine Silk discusses both the role of dance in a child’s development and the children’s books that can increase a child’s appreciation of dance; Susan Meeske describes how children combined quilt-making and storytelling by designing and executing a “story quilt”; Art teacher Susan Campbell demonstrates how books fit into the art curriculum to promote aesthetic and intellectual development; and David Carr explains an exciting concept of museum education in “Rex’s Lending Center and the Information Life of the Child at the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis.” These latter two chapters are characterized by a thoroughness that comes dangerously close to becoming a glut of information. Susan Campbell supplies no fewer than twelve pages of books about art and David Carr includes lengthy quotes from a survey administered to users of the Rex Lending Center. In essays about art and dance particularly, it seems odd to emphasize books in any but a peripheral way; surely aesthetic development in both of these areas comes primarily through experiencing, not reading or viewing. (Does “aesthetic” belong with “intellectual” in the book’s sub-title?)

Two essays are devoted to technology as the important new way to move toward knowing. Catherine Murphy, in “Online...