I'm halfway through this. The main points I've gathered so far are: 1) children are indoctrinated with consumerism from day 1, children's literature is as much to blame as everything else; and 2) there is no such thing as true childrens literature.

While I don't necessarily disagree with many of the author's points, I'm just feeling he could have been more economical with his words. Perhaps things will improve with the second half?Great chapter on the contamination of fairy tales. Each translator, author, artist, editor etc. adds their own flavor and dimension, enriching the piece. I have always been somewhat snobbish on this point, particularly w/ Grimm's tales and how they are manipulated to suit an author's agenda. Never occurred to me that the brothers Grimm did the same thing. High horse has been shooed.

ILL called back early, left off on Chapter 7/Wisdom and Folly of Storytelling. ( )

May want to use quote in the future about children's literature: (pp. 40-41)

"There never has been a literature conceived *by* children *for* children, a literature that belongs to children, and there never will be. This is not to say that children do not produce their own cultural artifacts that include literary works. There are now even children's magazines and Websites established and produced by children, and children, which includes teenagers and young adults, have produced their own literary products, journals, newspapers, cartoons, comics, plays, and videos. But the institution of children's literature is not of their making, nor is the literature that they are encouraged to read, digest, and incorporate into their cultural experience and heritage. Certainly they participate in children's literature and the process of making it what it is, but children's literature *per se* does not exist. More important for understanding what we arbitrarily call children's literature is the institution of children's literature, which, I claim, paradoxically undermines the quality products for children, that is the "great" fiction, poetry, and artwork that is purportedly wants to disseminate and use to socialize and develop future humanist thinkers. This is because the institution of children's literature must operate more and more within the confines of the culture industry in which the prevailing consumerism and commercialism continue to minimize and marginalize the value of critical and creative thinking, and with it, the world of an individual human being." (pp. 40-41)