The Value of Children’s Literature for Fostering Connection and Growth
There has been no shortage of books in the past fifteen years that claim to teach children how to identify and regulate their feelings, get along with others, listen to their bodies, and think critically about the wider world. I still find myself pulling these books down every now and again when working with my own younger therapy clients, but we often end up lamenting the didactic or prescriptive nature of those books. Even the most well-written favorites - The Rabbit Listened, Allie All Along - put their message front and center, as if to say “Do This, Not That!” or “Follow my lesson and you’ll always be okay.” And then, when a child inevitably has yet another tantrum, or goes through another bout of debilitating anxiety, we wonder why the book didn’t “work” to teach them that perfect strategy, or skill, or way of reframing the narrative. If we could ensure a child’s ultimate mental well-being through the right choice of literature or, dare I say, therapy modality, wouldn’t we have put the Self-Help authors out of business by now?
Children are complex creatures who defy all of our expectations and who have rich inner lives just as hidden and private as mine or yours. Sometimes they’re happy, sometimes they’re sad, sometimes they’re happy and sad and jealous and proud all at once and they just want to know that it’s okay to be totally wrapped up in those big, conflicting feelings and, of course, that the feeling won’t last forever. Beverly Cleary, all the way back in 1975, may have said it best in Ramona and Her Father - “Didn’t grown-ups think children worried about anything but jack-o’-lanterns? Didn’t they know children worried about grown-ups?” Seven-year-old Ramona got knots in her stomach thinking about her father out of a job, her mother taking on extra hours as a receptionist, and whether it’s still okay to have fun and smile when the people around you are having such a hard time.
There’s a book out there for every type of kid facing every kind of challenging or upending situation, but there are also books that just encourage children to sit, and think, and engage their senses to notice what’s going on for themselves and the people, or animals, or communities, around them. In the 1979 Days with Frog and Toad, Toad fears that his best friend’s call for some alone time means he has done something wrong to drive his friend away. Through a series of stressful but humorous events, we learn the fluidity and flexibility of friendship as well as, perhaps, the necessity of proper and direct communication.
In Peter Brown’s 2016 The Wild Robot along with its 2018 sequel The Wild Robot Escapes, our characters confront the question of who gets to claim humanity, what it means to be alive, and how someone can maintain their sense of self amidst a sea of changes, both physical and emotional. Roz, our robot, asks, “If I am not ROZZUM unit 7134, who am I?” and she receives in return, “I think you know who you are.” What I’m learning from letting myself put down the heavy-handed emotional literacy books and pick up Ramona Quimby, Age 8 or Negative Cat (a Sophie Blackall masterpiece) is that if we’re willing to put in the work and be vulnerable while we read fiction to or alongside our kids, there are an endless number of moments to point to, emotions to empathize with, and arguments to pull apart. The simplest way to encourage your child to engage deeply with a text is to share your own thoughts - something as simple as “Oof! That was rough!” or as involved as prompting your child to connect with “What do you think is happening here?”
You can find something to talk about with any book, Captain Underpants included, but a few of the favorites at our practice are Amulet (by Kazuo Kibuishi) for the older tweens, The Wild Robot series (by Peter Brown) for the elementary-aged kids, the Dory Fantasmagory series (by Abby Hanlon) for the kindergarten through second graders, and Frog and Toad (by Arnold Lobel) or the Elephant and Piggie series (by Mo Willems) for our youngest listeners.
