Booktrust recently published a list of ten kids books about love. The full list is available here.
I’ve not read all of them but I was instantly intrigued.
What’s love? How do we define love? How does a child perceive, experience and learn what love is? How is it represented in literature? Is love a necessary experience for a character to experience?
I’m intrigued by the representation of love in books for the very young. In this particular pre / emergent literacy age group, the texts have a duel readership. The child and the mediating presence of the adult. Is it then, that in these books in particular, the representation of a happy loving relationship becoming a didactic message for the child to mimic and model their behaviour on or is it a side-wink to the adult reader that says we’re indoctrinating your child in the “right” way to think?
Ps – Regardless of all the above theoretical pondering, anything by Louise Rennison still remains Officially Brilliant and Worth Of A Read Regardless Of Age.
Daisy May Johnson 