From Cover to Cover (14 page)

L
EVEL
T
HREE

The most challenging of the easy readers are written at a level that is typical of children who are beginning third grade. Due to the use of more difficult words, an adult reading the text may not even be aware that the book is written with a controlled vocabulary. There is a greater frequency of compound and complex sentences, resulting in language that begins to sound more natural. Still, the line lengths are short, fewer than eight words, and the number of lines per page does not exceed fifteen. The text may cover up to three quarters of the page, although due to the large type and plenty of space between lines, there is a lot of white space on each page. Illustrations may even appear only on alternating pages, and they begin to function more as decorations.

Note the characteristics of a level three reader in this passage from
Mercy Watson Goes for a Ride
, by Kate DiCamillo:

Children who are comfortably reading level three texts are probably ready to make the jump to the next highest level: the transitional book. This stage in a child’s reading life is usually brief, but it is very important. It is during this stage that the child gains confidence and discovers that reading is personally important and pleasurable.

TRANSITIONAL BOOKS

As noted earlier, there has not been the careful attention given to the design of transitional books as there has to easy readers. Ann Cameron’s
The Stories Julian Tells
sets a standard for excellence in design that few have matched (or even striven for). Like easy readers, it has a large typeface and the number of lines per page never exceeds fifteen. The number of words per line, however, has been increased to an average of eight to twelve. Sentences are no longer broken down into shorter lines, and right-hand margins are now justified. There is plenty of white space on every page, with generous margins at the top, bottom, and sides; and there is still a full line of leading between every line of type. The book includes frequent full-page black-and-white illustrations, but there may be two or three double-page spreads in a row with no illustrations at all. The six chapters are short and episodic, varying in length from seven to seventeen pages. It is the length of the chapters, the justified right margins, and the smaller ratio of text to illustrations that give
The Stories Julian Tells
the look of a chapter book, while design elements—such as line length, type size, and white space—make it accessible to inexperienced readers.

Compare the first to the third book in the Julian series,
Julian’s Glorious Summer
. The latter was designed to conform to the publisher’s then-new transitional series, Stepping Stone. The third Julian book uses a much smaller typeface and has up to twenty-five lines per page. This design is much more typical of what we see in most publishers’ series of transitional books.

There are several other characteristics these books have in common that make them more accessible to newly independent readers.

A simple vocabulary without too many surprising descriptors or multisyllabic words.
Children at this stage of reading are beginning to read for meaning, so it is important that the words they are reading mean something to them. What words has the author used? Are they common, everyday words a seven-or eight-year-old is likely to know? If the meaning of a word is likely to be unfamiliar, has the author provided a context that will give clues to the reader?

Ann Cameron included a chapter about a fig tree in
The Stories Julian Tells
. While transitional readers would not have any trouble reading the word “fig,” Cameron must have been aware that there would be some children who had never seen or eaten a fig. Notice how skillfully she provides a context for those children so that they will not be excluded:

Sentences that are relatively short, direct, and uncomplicated.
Pay close attention to sentence length. Do long sentences alternate with short ones? How are longer sentences constructed? Compound sentences are easier to read, and complex sentences with dependent clauses are
more difficult. Do you see more than a few commas per page? If so, that may be an indication that more complicated sentences are being used, as commas often set off dependent clauses.

Compare the following passages. The first is from Lenore Look’s
Ruby Lu, Brave and True
and the second from Anne Fine’s
The Jamie and Angus Stories
:

Even though the passage from
The Jamie and Angus Stories
uses relatively simple vocabulary, the sentence structure is quite complex and would require the skills of a more experienced reader. Because this sort of complexity is common in the book, we would not classify it as a book for transitional readers, even though it has many of the characteristics we look for: large, clear typeface; plenty of white space; occasional illustrations; and short, episodic chapters.

Brief episodes, chapters, or intervals that stand out to the reader.
The average length of a chapter in a transitional book is just
six to eight pages. Each chapter typically follows the actions of one, two, or three characters in one place at one time. All the chapters in Michelle Edwards’s
Pa Lia’s First Day
, for example, take place during a single day at school and introduce the classmates who are main characters in the Jackson Friends series.
Runaway Radish
, by Jessie Haas, takes place over a long period of time as it follows the life of a horse and its owners, but each chapter is limited to one main episode that moves the plot along. These episodes can be described in short sentences, for example:

Look at each chapter to see exactly what happens. Can it be easily summed up in a few words? If not, it will probably be too difficult for transitional readers.

Inexperienced readers often have a great deal of trouble grasping jumps in time and changes in setting. These are two very important techniques in fiction writing, and children need to gain familiarity with them in order to become competent readers of fiction. Because chapters are short in transitional books, changes in time and setting generally occur between rather than within chapters. These changes will not be obvious to young readers unless they are given clear, direct descriptions. Phrases such as “The next day…” and “When Sam got to the park…” are essential.

In
Berta: A Remarkable Dog
, Celia Barker Lottridge always lets her readers know exactly where and when the action takes place by building it into the opening sentence of each chapter. For example:

Look for changes in time and setting. Where and how often do they occur? Does the author use helpful descriptive phrases to let readers know exactly where and when the action takes place?

Content compelling enough to hold a child’s interest but not so complicated that it’s hard to follow.
Like easy readers, transitional books generally have two or three main characters and brisk plots with a lot of action. Contemporary stories about friends and family work especially well, because the types of characters, situations, and conflicts they offer are familiar and easily understood by newly independent readers. More whimsical elements can be introduced if they are firmly rooted in a reality that children will easily absorb. Marion Dane Bauer’s
The Blue Ghost
introduces supernatural elements, but they are firmly grounded in the familiar reality of a family summer cottage.

Children who are going through this stage in their lives as readers need to build self-confidence as they make the leap from easy readers
to chapter books. Transitional books serve as a bridge for them. It is a bridge that some children will cross very quickly; others will have to linger for a while. The best transitional books will suggest that the trip across is worth it and that great things await them on the other side.

Children’s fiction offers a rich diversity of style, content, and form to satisfy a variety of tastes, interests, and abilities of young readers. From the witty portrayals of ordinary child life in Beverly Cleary’s Ramona books to Gary Paulsen’s gripping stories of wilderness survival to the complexities of character revealed in Virginia Hamilton’s multilayered novels, there are books to amuse, stimulate, and captivate many types of readers.

With such a wide range of fiction, how do we choose the best? What characterizes an outstanding novel for children? Are there literary standards that we can apply to all works of fiction? How can we tell what will appeal to children at different age levels and abilities? Can a fourth grader read the same books as a seventh grader? Do boys and girls like the same kinds of books? How important is popularity and child appeal? Why don’t they give the Newbery Medal to popular books? What’s the problem with formula series books, anyway? If kids are reading them, isn’t that the most important thing?

These are all questions commonly asked by people who are thinking about children’s fiction. All are valid and important questions for us to consider. Many of them have their roots in the conflicting points of
view that led to the creation of contemporary children’s fiction in the first place.

Prior to the 1920s, most of children’s fiction consisted of popular series books, such as Tom Swift, the Motor Girls, the Bobbsey Twins, and dozens of other series written according to a prescribed formula. There were no separate children’s divisions in publishing houses at the time, and even children’s departments in public libraries were a rarity.

In the early part of the twentieth century libraries began to establish specialized departments for children by hiring women who had been trained in a newly developing field devoted to children’s services. But when these librarians looked for books to add to their library’s collections, they found that there was little that met their critical standards. In 1920 Anne Carroll Moore, the influential head of New York Public Library’s Office of Work with Children, lamented: “We are tired of substitutes for realities in writing for children. The trail…[is] strewn with patronage and propaganda, moralizing self-sufficiency and sham efficiency, mock heroics and cheap optimism—above all, with the commonplace in theme, treatment, and language.”

Of course, there were books such as
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
,
Little Women,
and
Hans Brinker; or, The Silver Skates
, but these titles were the exception, not the rule. Thanks to the combined efforts of children’s librarians, publishers, and booksellers, the rules were about to change.

In the United States just after the end of World War I, great changes were in the air. Within a five year period (1919 to 1924) there was a remarkable series of events that would have a long-lasting impact: Children’s divisions were set up in publishing houses;
The Horn Book
magazine was founded; Children’s Book Week was established; and perhaps, most important, the Newbery Medal was created to encourage writers and publishers to produce high-quality books for children.

Of course, this radical change in children’s books was not without
its opponents. The proponents and producers of formula series books launched a verbal attack on children’s librarians, claiming that, since they were mere women (and spinsters, at that), they had no right to judge what was fit reading for red-blooded American boys. Librarians, in alliance with the Boy Scouts of America, countered by emphasizing “good books for boys” in their early recommendations, thus advancing the notion of gender-specific reading tastes.

The first several winners of the Newbery Medal are a case in point. They are for the most part titles that would be touted as books for boys. Speaking about the work of 1924 Newbery Medalist Charles Boardman Hawes (
The Dark Frigate
) shortly after the announcement had been made, librarian Louise P. Latimer stated: “Let us nail them to our mast and say to those who question or discredit our judgment, these are examples of good writing for boys. Match them with hack writing if you can.”

Children’s librarians quickly established themselves as the major influence in setting the literary standards for children’s fiction. Formula series fiction faded into the background, and although it has never completely died out, it has been greatly marginalized in school and public libraries.

LITERARY GENRES

Over the past several decades a significant body of outstanding fiction written especially for children has developed. It can be categorized by genres and subgenres, and it’s important for a critic to identify the genre of any book under consideration.

REALISM

Realism is most easily defined as stories that could happen in the real world. This is an extremely popular form of children’s fiction with both
authors and readers. Realism itself can be divided into the following subcategories.

Contemporary realistic fiction
: Stories set in the here and now. They can deal with serious issues, such as Kevin Henkes’s evocative
Bird Lake Moon
, in which two boys are dealing with loss in their families, or they can be funny stories like Megan McDonald’s Judy Moody series.

Historical fiction
: Stories set in the past. Setting is generally integral. The author must bring unfamiliar events and everyday experiences to life and offer enough historical context for child readers so that they understand the time period. The author must also remain true to the historical era about which he or she is writing. Karen Cushman is a master at writing compelling books set in the past, such as
The Midwife’s Apprentice
, set in the Middle Ages, and
The Loud Silence of Francine Green
, set just after World War II.

School stories
: For obvious reasons, this subgenre is unique to children’s and young adult literature. Traditionally, school stories were set in boarding schools, and the setting served as a microcosm for society at large; but today we see many children’s novels set in public school classrooms, where the teacher, classmates, and occasionally the principal are the main characters. In
The Fabled Fourth Graders of Aesop Elementary School
, Candace Fleming pits a rambunctious group of nine-year-olds against a resourceful teacher. A classroom of fifth graders take a vow of silence in Andrew Clements’s
No Talking
, with hilarious results.

Sports stories
: Stories that feature a child or sometimes an entire team playing a specific sport. The best books in this genre have plenty of descriptive passages that make play-by-play action an integral part of the plot. Matt Christopher set the standard for children’s sports fiction, and his books continue to be favorites with young sports enthusiasts. Many sports novels follow the experiences of one player or team, perfecting skills to prepare for the big game, but there are exceptions to this
formula. The entire story of
Six Innings: A Game in the Life
, by James Preller, takes place during a Little League championship game, told from the different points of view of the players.

Survival stories
: Stories that tell of a character’s struggle to survive, either physically or emotionally. In most survival stories, characters must make life-or-death decisions that determine their fate.
Run, Boy, Run
, by Uri Orlev, is a Holocaust survival story in which an eight-year-old boy escapes from the Warsaw Ghetto and must survive on his own. In Helen Frost’s
Diamond Willow
, a twelve-year-old girl must survive on her own when she is trapped in a snowstorm during what should have been a two-hour dogsled ride. These novels show both the physical and emotional survival of the main characters.

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

While fantasy and science fiction are sometimes classed together, they are each distinctive subgenres in their own right. What they have in common and what distinguishes them from realistic fiction is that they do not take place in the real world as we know it.

Fantasy
: Stories that take place in an imaginary world created by the author. The author creates the rules by which the world operates and must remain consistent to them. He or she must also make the world believable enough that readers will be able to suspend disbelief when they enter it. Fantasy is further subdivided into
high fantasy
and
low fantasy
. High fantasy is set in a completely imaginary world. A good example is
Princess Academy
, by Shannon Hale, set in an imaginary kingdom where villagers are able to communicate telepathically. Low fantasy is set in the real world but introduces magical elements. Ingrid Law’s
Savvy
is set in the contemporary United States but features a family whose members have a magical power that is revealed on their thirteenth birthdays. Low fantasies often set up parallel imaginary worlds that coexist with our real
world. Examples are the Gregor series, by Suzanne Collins; the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, by Rick Riordan; and J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series.
Animal fantasies
are another popular subcategory for children. These range from stories such as Brian Jacques’s Redwall series, in which mice and other animals stand in for human characters, to stories like
Masterpiece
, by Elise Broach, in which humans interact with talking animals—in this case, beetles.

Science fiction
: Sometimes called
speculative fiction
, these are stories set in an imaginary world that operates by the laws of science, rather than by magic. Children’s science fiction often deals with ethical issues by taking some aspect of contemporary life and projecting it into a future time.
The Hunger Games
, by Suzanne Collins, for example, depicts a bleak future in which a single reality television show determines the fate of entire populations represented by the contestants. The ethics of cloning, and nature versus nurture, are both central to the theme of Nancy Farmer’s
The House of the Scorpion
, when a boy learns he is the clone of an evil 142-year-old dictator.

OTHER GENRES IN CHILDREN’S FICTION

Horror
: Stories that set out to scare the reader. This is an especially popular genre with many children, something that many adults find puzzling. But the attraction of most horror for children is that they can identify with the central theme, which is powerlessness, and find comfort in seeing a child facing his fears and overcoming more powerful forces, such as zombies, vampires, and psycho killers. Neil Gaiman’s
Coraline
is a good example of a deliciously scary novel in which a young girl outwits evil predators who look exactly like her parents, except for their button eyes.

Mystery
: Stories in which some sort of mystery or puzzle is introduced early on that gets children involved in trying to figure out what has
happened. Mysteries include detective stories, suspense novels, and tales of the supernatural; and they are marked by suspense and fast-paced action. There are excellent children’s mystery series with child detectives, such as the Echo Falls series, by Peter Abrahams, and the Enola Holmes series, by Nancy Springer. In Rebecca Stead’s
When You Reach Me
, mysterious notes left for the main character by an unknown person provide both the puzzle and the clues needed to solve it.

ILLUSTRATED NOVELS

In the first half of the twentieth century, most children’s novels were accompanied by illustrations, either in black and white or as full-color plates tipped in between pages of text. In the late 1950s, illustrations in chapter books fell out of favor, and within ten years it was a rarity to see them in a children’s novel. But at the beginning of the twenty-first century, they have been making a comeback and are once again becoming common, even in books for teenagers.

Most illustrated children’s novels use art as decoration, either as chapter headings as we see in Louise Erdrich’s
The Birchbark House,
or as occasional full-page illustrations, such as those created by Bagram Ibatoulline for Kate DiCamillo’s
The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane
. In some cases, the illustrations are an integral part of the book. A notable example is Brian Selznick’s
The Invention of Hugo Cabret
, a novel that opens with 21 wordless illustrated double-page spreads and includes 284 pages of illustrations throughout its 533 pages. So integral are the illustrations to the story, in fact, the book won the 2008 Caldecott Medal for distinguished illustration, marking the first time a novel had been recognized in this way.

Another popular form of illustrated children’s fiction is the
graphic novel
that uses sequential art and words in accordance with comic-book conventions to tell a story. While graphic novels are especially popular
with teenagers, many publishers are beginning to develop graphic novel lines for children, as well. Jennifer and Matthew Holm’s superb Babymouse series is perfect for elementary-school-aged children, as is Kean Soo’s
Jellaby
.

When evaluating the illustrations in children’s fiction, you can consider some of the same questions you would ask yourself about picture book illustrations. In addition, you should consider them in the context of the novel itself. How well do the illustrations match the tone of the book? Are they age appropriate and likely to appeal to child readers, or do they make the book look babyish? Will they make the book more accessible to reluctant readers? Do they detract from or contradict the text? Are they integral to the story, and, if so, how do they enhance it?

Many children develop an early preference for a particular genre, and read almost exclusively in that genre when they read for pleasure, right up into adulthood. One of the reasons for the broad popularity of the Harry Potter series, in fact, is that it crosses into just about every literary genre in children’s literature and thus appeals to a very broad range of readers.