SPRING 2020
Children's Collections
Children's Collections
"Where are the children in children’s collections?"
Aggleton, J. (2018). Where are the children in children’s collections?
An exploration of ethical principles and practical concerns surrounding
children’s participation In collection development.
In New Review of Children’s Literature and Librarianship (Vol. 24, Issue 1, pp. 1–17).
Are children to be consulted on the development of children’s lit collections?
Are children’s collections developed mainly on the views of adults
rather than the interests of children?
Are collections of children’s lit, also collections of children’s culture?
Highly disputed!
What is the principle of children’s participation in the development of
collections of children’s literature?
If children’s lit is a collection of children’s culture,
then should children be more involved in the development of their culture?
These are the questions Aggleton’s paper explores.
When adults create children’s literature, it is created from an adult
perspective and includes the ideals of the adult about childhood.
The adult is creating from a personal place of what their childhood
may or may not have been like or what they believe is an ideal for childhood.
Children’s literature is predominantly written, published, bought and sold by adults.
Is this a problem?
It is if you believe that children’s literature is a reflection of children’s culture.
Who is creating the narrative?
Also, examined by Aggleton is the fact that children’s literature is often used to
teach, socialize and oppress children.
Children’s literature created by children is rarely seen in children’s collections.
In fact there is a great book called
I Am Jazz that is written by a transgender young adult who describes her
experience and feelings growing up.
This book is highly disputed and banned in some libraries.
Is children’s literature, children’s culture?
Continuing with I Am Jazz as an example, this book represents the changes in
our culture, human rights and human development.
When a book such as this is banned we are essentially
telling children the world they are experiencing is not valid.
If they have a transgender friend, and this book changed the way
they think about that friend then this is the most power literature
- the power to change the way we think.
I learned a lot from this paper. I have not considered the argument that children's lit is derived mostly from adult perspectives and this represents the child culture of the time it is written. In Judy Blume's MasterClass she describes her process of keeping the perspective of the child at the front of her writing, resisting the urge to rewrite according to what adults consider appropriate.
Collection developers can advocate to include in their collection books written by children for children about the culture they live and breathe in.
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