Children’s Literature & Ideology

Peter Hollindale. Ideology And The Children’s Book. 18-40

2009.11. 11 By Shing Er Wu

ID ： ideology

A systematic scheme of ideas, usu. relating to politicspolitics or societsocietyy, or to the conduct of aa classclass oor groupr group, and regarded as justify

ng actions …

~ Oxford English Dictionary

Some statements for reading children’s book

p.19~20

Book People vs. Child People （文學本位） （ 兒童本位）

• adult’s judgements • children’s judgements

• differences of literary merit • influence on readers of a boo’s social and political values

• a reactionary ideology • a progressive ideology

• amongst authors : prize-winning, dust-collecting, adult-praised, child-neglected … ex. Fred Inglis

• amongst authors : ie. the oral storyteller

ex. Bob Dixon

• the caricatured book person • the caricatured child person ：kids to Kid

defending both with equal enthusiasm ： • Any individual is free to elevate political judgement above literary judgement and free to like and admire a great work of literature, even if its ideology is repellent. ex. reading D. H. Lawrence p. 23

• talking about ideology led to presseure to children’s ； how is more important than what p.23

Diversity and IndividualityWhat Leeson talk about “matching” ？

• the writer’s creative freedom should be respected but also be understood p.24

• readers perceive the same story in different ways ： age, sex, race, social class … p. 26

Conclusion:

ideology is inevitable, untameable and largely uncon

trollable (because of the multiplicity and diversity in ea

ch individual form ) p.27

Three Levels of Ideology

• 作者明確、有意想傳達的意識形態

• 作者被動、未經檢視的意識形態

• 作者所處的世界普遍的意識形態

The reader as ideologist

• ideology is not something which is transferred to children, it is something which they already possess

• examples from Rob Grunsell & Susan Price’s Where I Stand

Locating the ideology of individual books

• concerns with “how to”

1. what if the components of a text are transposed or reversed

2. consider the denouements and the happening

3. the values shown as a “package” in separate items ?

4. some of the values are test and undermined ?

5. the value associated with characters

6. have to make a difficult choice in the story?

7. any character shown as a mixture of roles?

8. the omission and invisibility

Conclusion ：

Ideology is a living thing, and something

we need to know as we need to kno

w ourselves.

It is part of us. p.40

圖片來源：長新太