{"id":16657,"date":"2015-11-18T06:02:48","date_gmt":"2015-11-18T14:02:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ordinary-fan.flywheelsites.com\/?p=16657"},"modified":"2022-09-23T15:39:58","modified_gmt":"2022-09-23T22:39:58","slug":"flying-ponies-and-dump-trucks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redeemedreader.com\/flying-ponies-and-dump-trucks\/","title":{"rendered":"Flying Ponies and Dump Trucks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Do little kids love fantasy? NPR recently reported on a study done by three academic psychologists on <a href=\"https:\/\/redeemedreader.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/henrietta.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-16658 lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/redeemedreader.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/henrietta.jpg\" alt=\"henrietta\" width=\"192\" height=\"289\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 192px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 192\/289;\" \/><\/a>the subject of children and fiction. They asked a group of 4-to-7-year-olds what choose between two stories they might like to read or listen to: one story about a child who found a treasure, and another about a child who found a dinosaur bone. For half the children, the treasure story was presented as true and the bone story as made up. For the other half, those qualifications were reversed. The researchers queried the same number of adults on the same question.<\/p>\n<p>The results are interesting: a roughly equal number of adults favored factual or fictional stories. But the children were \u201csignificantly more likely to prefer fact over fiction.\u201d In a second study, the researchers asked children to choose between stories that were obviously supernatural and others that sounded realistic\u2014for instance, \u201ca boy who lives on an invisible farm,\u201d vs. \u201ca boy with lots of brothers and sisters.\u201d Again, the realistic stories intrigued them more than the fantastic.<\/p>\n<p>Anyone who hasn\u2019t spent a lot of time with children may be surprised at this: we think of little ones as creatures of \u201cwonder.\u201d And in a way that\u2019s true\u2014depending on our definition of wonder. A magician who entertains at birthday parties knows that the younger the child, the less impressed she\u2019ll be with illusions. When the man in the black cape pulls a rabbit out of a hat, his five-year-old audience could care less about the hat\u2014they\u2019re interested in the rabbit. That is the wonderful element to them.<\/p>\n<p>This may be why most chapter books and leveled readers (written for the k-2 crowd) are about actual boys and girls doing things well within the range of the reader\u2019s experience. Even talking animals, like Frog and Toad, have stood the test of time by being ordinary: looking for lost buttons, building a snowman, waiting for the mail.<\/p>\n<p>This preference isn\u2019t because children don\u2019t quite understand the difference between fact and fantasy. As the study shows, they clearly do. When they play with each other, fantasy elements often creep into the doll house or Jedi fortress (somebody is usually able to fly, for instance). But stories, as opposed to playacting, come with a stamp of authority. An older, more experienced person is telling or reading them, or if the child is reading on his own, the book itself takes the authority role. The child is not just being entertained; he is receiving information, and some implanted wisdom within him prefers that the information be correct.<\/p>\n<p>This is something to consider when choosing read-alouds or early readers for children in the K-2 age range. It doesn\u2019t mean a story should contain no fantasy elements at all, but only reminds us of the obvious, that children are not miniature adults. The real world is new to them; family dynamics are as mysterious as a cloak of invisibility.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/redeemedreader.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/flop-top.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-16659 alignleft lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/redeemedreader.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/flop-top.jpg\" alt=\"flop-top\" width=\"192\" height=\"289\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 192px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 192\/289;\" \/><\/a>A new series of early readers called Toon books may or may not understand this, even though they\u2019re a lot of fun. Best described as graphic novels for the kindergarten set, Toon books are quirkily illustrated with humor and a certain amount of far-outness. <em>Flop to the Top!<\/em> introduces Wanda, a star in the making who\u2019s determined to be famous for . . . something. Instead, her dog Wilbur finds the spotlight after Wanda posts a selfie of the two of them. Not fantasy, exactly, but exaggerated reality that the average beginning reader may not relate to. In <em>Written and Drawn by Henrietta<\/em>, the title character is writing her own story about finding a monster with three heads and two hats in the depths of her closet (\u201cIt was made in Narnia\u201d). Fantasy, right? But her crayon drawings and speculations about the monster are plot points most five-year-olds can understand. It\u2019s a story Henrietta is <em>telling<\/em>, not hearing; it doesn\u2019t mean she necessarily wants Daddy to read a story with monsters.<\/p>\n<p>In spite of all of us having been small children once upon a time, we don\u2019t remember it that well. We forget how hungry their minds are for facts, for understanding the world they live in. Wonder is not just flying ponies and rainbows; it\u2019s also driving a dump truck, digging in the garden, and discovering how Frog and Toad found their lost button.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Do little kids love fantasy? NPR recently reported on a study done by three academic psychologists on the subject of children and fiction. They asked a group of 4-to-7-year-olds what choose between two stories they might like to read or listen to: one story about a child who found a treasure, and another about a&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":16658,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4013,3,7,9,17,19,20],"tags":[172,528,1062,1230,2821],"class_list":["post-16657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-b-ages-4-8","category-book-reviews","category-easy-readers-book-reviews","category-fantasy-book-reviews","category-picture-books-2","category-raising-readers","category-realistic-fiction-book-reviews","tag-ages-4-8","tag-book-reviews-2","tag-easy-readers","tag-fantasy","tag-realistic-fiction"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.2 (Yoast SEO v26.2) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Flying Ponies and Dump Trucks - Redeemed Reader<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/redeemedreader.com\/flying-ponies-and-dump-trucks\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Flying Ponies and Dump Trucks\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Do little kids love fantasy? NPR recently reported on a study done by three academic psychologists on the subject of children and fiction. 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