Children's Literature, Briefly. Chapter 16: Controversial Books

What stuck out to me the most reading this chapter was the section that discussed determining what is and is not developmentally appropriate for children. That is a tough call to make because so many factors contribute to an appropriateness. An individual child's maturity, community standards, and the context or explicitness of the text play major roles. How do we as teachers make that call? We must decide if the books that we assign and the books that we have available to students are worth defending if they are questioned. Having defined reasons for exposing children to a book is a must. If you are potentially going to be question you must know why you had to bring the book out in the first place. We must judge the book based on its content not subject. We also have to know the maturity level of our students and make the best judgement call possible.