“[C]hildren often prefer the factual over the fantastical. And a growing body of work suggests that when it comes to storybooks, they also learn better from stories that are realistic. For example, preschool-aged children are more likely to learn new facts about animals when the animals are portrayed realistically as opposed to anthropomorphically.” Two new studies suggest that where learning is concerned, realism trumps fantasy in children’s books. Which is as good a time as any to ask our own Jacob Lambert‘s question: Are picture books leading our children astray?
Rabbit Run
Like Reading How-To Manuals
James Hynes discusses the books he read when writing his latest novel, Next: “I wanted to see if I could write a day-in-the-life novel, a narrative that would be set in a single day, or part of one, and by working backwards and forwards through flashbacks, encompass the entire life of a single character.”
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A Shared Vernacular
Year in Reading alum David L. Ulin writes about how books forged a bond between him and his father. “Books are, have always been, a shared vernacular between us.”
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Sports Fiction
In an unexpected crossover of the sporting and the literary, ESPN Magazine is running a sports-themed short fiction contest. They aren’t publicizing it online, but this PDF from the print mag has all the details.
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Shellacked Decorative Vegetables
Halloween might be over, but the season of freakishly large decorative gourds lives on. Here’s a fascinating essay from The Toast on how to raise enormous pumpkins–county fair, here we come.
New from Ann Beattie
In the Fall 2015 issue of VQR, check out new fiction from Ann Beattie. You could also read our recent interview with the author.
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Matters of Public Safety
Last week, Kyle Boelte reviewed On Immunity by Eula Biss, delving into its lengthy history of inoculation and public health. At the Harper’s blog, Jeffery Gleaves talks with Biss as part of their Six Questions feature, asking her about Susan Sontag, public versus private danger and the relationship between capitalism and anti-vaccination sentiment.
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….ok but isn’t this “learn new facts about animals when the animals are portrayed” a sort of syllogism? Facts in the context of what the study purports appear to be of the strictly scientific (aka realist) variety. Realistically, none of the animals in the children’s book would speak thus any fable-type children’s book, strictly adhering to the logic of the argument, would devolve into a textfree, photorealistic portrayal of animals. To be fair, it seems highly implausible that such a children’s book [though the term naturalistic wildlife photo-story would seem more apt] would be able to convey any sort of moral content characteristic of primary socialization. In other words, while children’s zoological, biological and even botanical knowledge might experience an uptick, they would be deprived of the very cultural essence of what fables are about. …which in turn seems very much in line w the neolib ideal of producing technocratic factoid-mongers….