I found Dr. Hoogland’s comparison of the two books (Grandma’s Birthday Wish and Flotsan) an interesting read as she discussed quality literature amoung books. She maintained that a high quality literature book supplies an invitation to the story and serves to entice one’s imaginations. I found it convincing that Flotsam would be the more suitable choice and be deemed as a high quality literature book through reading and seeing the illustrations. Hoogland discusses the imaginative freedom that this book consists of, which allows children to create imaginative experiences of their own throughout readining the story. This book is also appealing to adults, which adds to its high quality. The likelihood of adults sharing books with children is increased when the adult actually enjoys the book and shares that enthusiasm while sharing with children will lead to an exciting reading experience. Another high quality literature standard that this book lives up to is depicted through the realism in its illustrations, which are very life-like. I found Hoodland’s guidance to be very helpful in clarifying the essentials of a high quality literature book, as she encouraged us to make use of our ‘critical filters’ when examining the appropriateness and quality of a book for students.
~Fathia Nasir
It is important for teachers and parents to take the time to judge the books that we read to children. Three important aspects of children literature discussed by Dr. Hoogland, which can be used as criteria to judge whether a book is of high quality, are what story the pictures tell, what story the words tell and what story the words and pictures together tell. Both the pictures and text should be scrutinized when looking at children’s picture books. The book that our group chose for a read aloud in class, Grandpa's Slippers, was well written with bright and realistic images. The images continued onto the next page, each one telling a part of the story.
The story appealed to us because we could relate to the story line. Since most children’s literature is written and illustrated by adults, it is important for them to get into the mind set of a child and explore their imagination capabilities. It is beneficial for the book to appeal to many ages, especially adults. If the book interests adults as well then the book will have meaning to both the reader and the audience.
Natalie Crompton
After viewing the clip on Dr. Cornelia Hoogland discussing quality literature books, I gained a lot of excellent insight as to what makes a children’s literature first rate. She compares two different books. One is grandma’s birthday wish and the other is Flotsam. After reading both and showing us the illustrations is becomes fairly easy to see which book would cater more to children. She uses Flotsam by David Weisner to tell why this book is high quality book to choose to read to children. First off she indicates that the book allows for playful imagination and imaginative freedom. She believes it is important for the book to draw children in, and allow for them to create their own imaginative experiences as the storey goes, not predictable imagination that doesn’t allow for many ways to enter a pretend world. Another important criterion is that the book has to appeal to adults as well as children. Chances are if you like it, so will the children. She mentions how the pages in Flotsam speak to one another and connect as you turn the pages, which is important for children to follow along with. She points out that the book has excellent ways of framing the pictures and points out how tactile images are important for children to relate too. Another reason that it is a high quality literature book is the realism that the illustrations offer. It really draws on realistic images of children’s posture in the book and how children can relate to the characters in the storey because of this. With this, the objects that are flying and floating with vibrant colour, really allows for children to be drawn into this imaginative world but also come back out of it, with the realistic images presented. These are just a few of the criteria she lists which can help us choose an appropriate and yet fun book. She reminds us that overall a quality literature book has to invite you into the storey, and the storey must evoke or challenge our imagination in some way. She reminds us to use our ‘critical filters’ to allow for us to think critically about what goes into choosing appropriate literature to read to our students. Overall, I think Dr. Hoogland does a great job in going through criteria that will help us as teacher candidates choose an appropriate book to read to our students when we becomes teachers.
~Lindsey Strong
After completing my grade 4/5 placement, I felt compelled to come back and answer this question about quality literature. In my classroom we read one of my favourite books called 'If the world were a village', by David Smith. This is an incredible book that can basically be manipulated to use in any grade. To me, quality literature must have certain criteria that must be met before classifying it as quality literature: It must have high quality pictures, it must have an engaging story line/text and it must evoke imagination and critical thinking in the reader. On top of this I truly believe that a good quality story or piece of literature should be able to integrate other subjects into it. In my class we read the story and actually integrated: English, storey writing, spelling, math, oral presentations and art into our lesson, from this one book. The students became so involved in this book, they even began to suggest to myself and my AT, ideas that we could do with the storey to extend it further. Some children even suggested acting out certain elements of the novel. Some suggested we do out own class research and keep examining issues in the story further. The overall idea here is that this one book, evoked so many ideas, and encouraged a high amount of participation within my classroom. This book has an amazing wow factor and I would highly recommend this as a valuable resource for any classroom and or teaching tool.
~Lindsey Strong
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