http://worldcat.org/entity/work/id/320385954

What boys and girls like to read

"A quarter century ago there was reason to hope that the more open-minded experts in children's literature were inclined to recognize the significance of research in this field. Terman's brilliant study, Children's Reading, had attracted wide attention. Occasionally writers on the subject cited evidence in support of theory and admonition. An Experience Curriculum, published by the National Council of Teachers of English in 1935, provides an example. That monograph stated that the literary selections recommended, though chosen chiefly on the basis of personal observation, had been "checked against the meager objective studies available." Further investigations of the suitability of "our usual literature prescriptions" were called for. It may surprise, and possibly dismay, those who have assumed that reliance upon evidence has become the normal procedure of authorities in this field, to discover the extent to which the results of investigation of children's reading preferences are repudiated or ignored today by the leading writers on the subject and by leading spokesmen for teachers of English. For some, facts are the most obnoxious form of truth, and statistics, the most obnoxious form of facts. It may have been unfortunate that the current study was begun before the investigator had read extensively in the professional literature of the subject. His first investigation in the field was undertaken to supplement in a minor way information he had accepted from authoritarian sources. It was with chagrin that he later read in an Authority that "investigators" wishing to know whether children like X 's poetry "can spare themselves the time and paraphernalia for 'scientific' testing." Reading on he learned that "some people know how to get hints from the children without resorting to an inquisition which destroys beauty in the very act of seeking it." Further reading revealed that this viewpoint was held by a major group of experts in the field of children's literature. Children's interests in literary materials are too fragile and sacred for research. The question may be approached through divination by the rarely endowed. But to ask a boy straight out whether he likes "Old Mother Hubbard" or "Solomon Grundy" may result in a spiritual implosion, a withering of esthetic tendrils that would leave the child fit only for "treasons, stratagems, and spoils." The investigator was in a quandary. Reports already received from hundreds of children indicated that certain poems which the experts had exalted and others which they had condemned should exchange places in their INDEX. With perturbation the investigation was continued"--Preface. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved).

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