I have a certain basket of books in the sitting room. Picture books.
They sit there, and occasionally they are picked up by Junior Reader, and perused for a while, usually in those five-minute moments when tea is not quite on the table.
I’ll confess. They are, in one sense, moralising books – or maybe more fairly, empathy reads. They are there to help make sense of difficult situations, and to offer some suggestions on how to respond to life.
It’s no great surprise that children’s literature is about moral example. Thankfully we’ve got plenty more than just that now, but still, we look to stories to make sense of life’s mysteries.
Why mean kids get away with things, and what we can do about it. Why villains flourish, and how to keep our heads when they seem to be winning. That kind of thing.
Some of the books I’ve put together are about feelings: anger, fear, worry, and so on. We all love a conversation where we learn that, despite our troubling (and personal) experience, we are not alone. Books meet us in that place, whatever age we are.
Sometimes the encouragement is of a different kind – one where we are shy, or quiet, or afraid of the world, and where a story offers an experience of freedom that might be less scary than we believe.
These books are important too, because they allow us to imagine ourselves as different: whether we want to be brave, or spontaneous, or simply special in our own way.
I’ve referred to these as moral reads – maybe they are counselling with a small ‘c’. Stories don’t have to dictate (and these days, I think they are less and less likely to). They can offer suggestions, and we are free to choose, or to find our own way.
So in the interest of spreading round a little more self-appreciation, whether for you or your own junior readers, I’ll add in a few book titles from my basket, and you can see what you think? Sound OK?
First up: books about tackling that big scary world out there, and being brave in some way.