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44 Part 1 Learning About Books and Children www.mhhe.com/kiefer10e

teaching resourcesBooks for Ages and Stages

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Before School—Infancy

Characteristics Implications Examples

Rapid development of senses. Responds to sound of human voice, especially rhythmic patterns. Vision stimulated by areas of color and sharp contrast; increas-ingly able to see detail.

Enjoys rhymes, songs, and lullabies. Likes simple, bright illustrations. Looks for familiar objects.

My Very First Mother Goose (Opie)Time for Bed (M. Fox)Kitten’s First Full Moon (Henkes)Hooray for Fish! (Cousins)

Uses all senses to explore the world im-mediately at hand; learns through activity and participation.

Gets maximum use from sturdy books with washable pages. Needs to par-ticipate by touching, pointing, peeking, moving.

Where’s Spot? (Hill)Pat the Bunny (Kunhardt)Sweet, Sweet Baby (Steptoe)Inside Freight Train (Crews)

Very limited attention span; averts eyes or turns away when bored.

Needs books that can be shared a few pages at a time or in a brief sitting; many short story times are better than one long one.

Mrs. McNosh Hangs Up Her Wash (Weeks)Dear Zoo (Campbell)How Do You Make a Baby Smile? (Sturges)Rain (Stojic)Baby Danced the Polka (Beaumont)

Building foundations of language; plays with sounds, learns basic vocabulary along with concepts, begins to learn con-cepts, begins to learn implicit “rules” that govern speech and conversation.

Needs to hear many rhymes and simple stories. Needs encouragement to use lan-guage in labeling pictures and in sharing dialogue with adults as they read aloud.

Everywhere Babies (Meyers)Inside Mouse, Outside Mouse (George)Monkey and Me (Gravett)

Building basic trust in human relationships. Needs love and aff ection from caregiv-ers, in stories as well as in life. Thrives on dependable routines and rituals such as bedtime stories.

Goodnight Moon (M. W. Brown)The House in the Night (Swanson)Fox (Banks)Papa Do You Love Me? (Joosse)

Limited mobility and experience; interests centered in self and the familiar.

Needs books that refl ect self and people and activities in the immediate environment.

Will Sheila Share? (Savadier)Who Likes Rain? (Yee)What’s in Baby’s Morning? (Hindley)Mama’s Day (Ashman)

Learning autonomy in basic self-help skills. Enjoys stories of typical toddler accom-plishments such as feeding self or getting dressed.

Bye-bye Crib (McGhee)Look at You!: A Baby Body Book (Henderson)Bing Gets Dressed (Dewan)

Preschool and Kindergarten—Ages 3, 4, and 5


Rapid development of language. Interested in words. Enjoys rhymes, nonsense, and repetition and cumulative tales. Enjoys retelling simple folktale and “reading” stories from books without words.

Where Is the Green Sheep? (Fox)Bears (Kraus)The Three Bears (Rockwell)When an Elephant Comes to School (Ormerod)

Very active, short attention span. Requires books that can be completed in one sitting. Enjoys participation such as naming, pointing, singing, and identifying hidden pictures. Should have a chance to hear stories several times each day.

The Noisy Way to Bed (Whybrow)The Wheels on the Race Car (Zane)Each Peach Pear Plum (Ahlberg)The Very Hungry Caterpillar (Carle)

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Chapter Two Understanding Children’s Responses to Literature 45

teaching resourcesBooks for Ages and Stages (continued)

Child is center of own world. Interest, behavior, and thinking are egocentric.

Likes characters that are easy to identify with. Normally sees only one point of view.

Best Best Friends (Chodos-Irvine)Leonardo, the Terrible Monster (Willems)No, David! (Shannon)Bunny Cakes (Wells)

Curious about own world. Enjoys stories about everyday experi-ences, pets, playthings, home, and people in the immediate environment.

When You Were Born (Aston)My Cat, the Silliest Cat in the World (Bachelet)Not Afraid of Dogs (Pitzer)The Wildest Brother (Funke)

Beginning interest in how things work and the wider world.

Books feed curiosity and introduce new topics.

One Little Lamb (Greenstein)A Truck Goes Rattley-Bumpa (London)My Mom’s Having a Baby! (Butler)Sea Horse: The Shyest Horse in the Sea (Butterworth)

Building concepts through many fi rsthand experiences

Books extend and reinforce child’s devel-oping concepts.

This Is Me and Where I Am (Fitzgerald)My Pet Hamster (Rockwell)My Car (Barton)Eating the Alphabet (Ehlert)

Has little sense of time. Time is “before now,” “now,” and “not yet.”

Books can help children begin to under-stand the sequence of time.

Cluck O’Clock (Gray)Hickory Dickory Dock (Baker)Clocks and More Clocks (P. Hutchins)A Second Is a Hiccup (H. Hutchins)

Learns through imaginative play; make-believe world of talking animals and magic seems very real.

Enjoys stories that involve imaginative play. Likes personifi cation of toys and animals.

Below (Crews)Corduroy (Freeman)We’re Going on a Bear Hunt (Rosen)Big Bad Bunny (Billingsley)

Seeks warmth and security in relation-ships with family and others.

Likes to hear stories that provide reassur-ance. Bedtime stories and other read-aloud rituals provide positive literature experiences.

Shhhhh! Everybody’s Sleeping (Markes)I Will Hold You ‘til You Sleep (Zuckerman)In a Blue Room (Tusa)Little Bear (Minarik)

Beginning to assert independence. Takes delight in own accomplishments.

Books can refl ect emotions. Enjoys stories where small characters show initiative.

A Couple of Boys Have the Best Week Ever (Frazee)Myrtle (Pearson)Alfi e Gets in First (Hughes)Will I Have a Friend? (M. Cohen)

Makes absolute judgments about right and wrong.

Expects bad behavior to be punished and good behavior to be rewarded. Requires poetic justice and happy endings.

The Little Red Hen (Barton)The Gingerbread Man (Aylesworth)The Tale of Peter Rabbit (Potter)

Early Primary: Ages 6 and 7


Continued development and expansion of language.

Frequent story times during the day pro-vide opportunity to hear the rich and var-ied language of literature. Wordless books and simple tales encourage storytelling.

Rainstorm (Lehman)Sylvester and the Magic Pebble (Steig)The Boy Who Loved Words (Schotter)The Adventures of the Dish and the Spoon (Grey)

Preschool and Kindergarten—Ages 3, 4, and 5 (continued)


(continued)




Attention span increasing. Prefers short stories; may enjoy a con-tinued story provided each chapter is a complete episode.

Tales from the Waterhole (Graham)Zelda and Ivy: The Runaways (Kvasnosky)The Library Lion (Knudson)Aggie and Ben: Three Stories (Ries)

Striving to accomplish skills expected by adults.

Proud of accomplishments in reading and writing. Needs reassurance that every-one progresses at own rate. First reading experiences should be enjoyable, using familiar or predictable stories.

A Splendid Friend, Indeed (Bloom)The Day of Ahmed’s Secret (Heide)You Read to Me, I’ll Read to You (Hoberman)

Learning still based on immediate percep-tion and direct experiences.

Uses information books to verify as well as extend experience. Much value in watching guinea pigs or tadpoles before using a book.

Actual Size (Jenkins)On the Way to the Beach (H. Cole)My Puppy Is Born (J. Cole)Chameleon, Chameleon (Cowley)

Continued interest in own world; more curious about a wider range of things. Still sees world from an egocentric point of view.

Needs a wide variety of books. TV has expanded interests beyond home and neighborhood.

Bee-Bim Bop! (Park)Bebé Goes Shopping (Elya)I Live in Tokyo (Takabayashi)The True Story of Stellina (Pericoli)

Vague concepts of time. Needs to learn basics of telling time and the calendar. Simple biographies and historical fi ction may give a feeling for the past, but accurate understanding of chronology is beyond this age group.

Mimmy and Sophie All Around the Town (Cohen)The House on Maple Street (Pryor)Ox-Cart Man (D. Hall)When I Was Young in the Mountains (Rylant)

More able to separate fantasy from real-ity; more aware of own imagination.

Enjoys fantasy. Likes to dramatize simple stories or use feltboard, puppets, etc.

Kersplash! (O’Connor)Traction Man Is Here! (Grey)Where the Wild Things Are (Sendak)I Know an Old Lady (Taback)

Beginning to develop empathy for others. Adults can ask such questions as “What would you have done?” “How would you have felt?”

Rickie and Henri (Goodall)Crow Boy (Yashima)The Teddy Bear (McPhail)Fly Away Home (Bunting)

Has a growing sense of justice. Demands application of rules, regardless of circumstances.

Expects poetic justice in books. Guji, Guji (Chen)Flossie and the Fox (McKissack)Too Many Tamales (Soto)The Tale of Tricky Fox (Aylesworth)

Humor is developing. Needs to hear many books read aloud for pure fun. Enjoys books and poems that have surprise endings, plays on words, incongruous situations, and slapstick comedy. Likes to be in on the joke.

Once Upon a Banana (Armstrong)Meet Wild Boars (Rosoff )My Little Sister Hugged an Ape (Grossman)Never Take a Shark to the Dentist (Barrett)

Shows curiosity about gender diff erences and reproduction.

Teachers need to accept and be ready to answer children’s questions about sex.

It’s Not the Stork: A Book About Girls, Boys, Babies, Bodies, Families and Friends (Harris)How I Was Born (Wabbes)Making Animal Babies (Collard)How You Were Born (J. Cole)

Early Primary: Ages 6 and 7 (continued)





Physical contour of the body is changing; permanent teeth appear; learning to whistle and developing other fi ne motor skills.

Books can help the child accept physical changes in self and diff erences in others.

I Lost My Tooth in Africa (Diakité)Whistling (Partridge)You’ll Soon Grow into Them, Titch (Hutchins)Hue Boy (Phillips)

Continues to seek independence from adults and to develop initiative.

Needs opportunities to select own books and activities. Enjoys stories of responsi-bility and successful ventures.

Elena’s Serenade (Campbell)My Rows and Piles of Coins (Mollel)Adèle & Simon (McClintock)Ira Sleeps Over (Waber)

Continues to need warmth and security in family relationships

Books may emphasize universal human characteristics in a variety of lifestyles.

For You Are a Kenyan Child (Cunnane)The Biggest Soap (Schaefer)A Bear for Miguel (Alphin)Henry’s First Moon Birthday (Look)

Middle Elementary: Ages 8 and 9


Attaining independence in reading skill. May read with complete absorption; or may still be having diffi culty learning to read. Wide variation in ability and interest.

Discovers reading as an enjoyable activity. Prefers an uninterrupted block of time for independent reading. During this period, many children become avid readers.

Ruby Lu, Brave and True (Look)Judy Moody Declares Independence! (McDonald)Shredderman: Enemy Spy (Van Draanen)Martin Bridge: Sound the Alarm! (Kerrin)

Reading level may still be below apprecia-tion level.

Essential to read aloud to children each day in order to extend interests, develop appreciation, and provide balance.

The Fish in Room 11 (Dyer)The Pepins and Their Problems (Horvath)Pale Male: Citizen Hawk of New York City (Schulman)If Dogs Were Dinosaurs (D. Schwartz)

Peer group acceptance becomes increas-ingly important.

Children need opportunities to recom-mend and discuss books. Sharing favor-ites builds a sense that reading is fun, and has group approval. Popular books may provide status and be much in demand.

Owen Foote, Super Spy (Greene)Lucy Rose: Big on Plans (Kelly)Mercy Watson, Princess in Disguise (DiCamillo)Clementine’s Letter (Pennypacker)

Developing standards of right and wrong. Begins to see viewpoints of others.

Books provide opportunities to relate to several points of view.

Honeysuckle House (Cheng)Alec’s Primer (Walter)Freedom on the Menu (Weatherford)Through My Eyes (Bridges)

Less egocentric; developing empathy for others. Questioning death.

Accepts some books with a less-than-happy ending. Discussions helps children explore their feelings for others.

Each Little Bird That Sings (Wiles)Michael Rosen’s Sad Book (M. Rosen)The Cat with the Yellow Star (Rubin)Stone Fox (Gardiner)

Time concepts and spatial relationships developing. This age level is characterized by thought that is fl exible and reversible.

Interested in biographies, life in the past, in other lands, and the future. Prefers fast-moving, exciting stories.

Maritcha: A Nineteenth Century American Girl (Bolden)Sequoyah (Rumford)Being Teddy Roosevelt (Mills)The Green Book (Walsh)

(continued)

Early Primary: Ages 6 and 7 (continued)





Enjoys tall tales and slapstick humor in everyday situations. Appreciates imagi-nary adventure.

Teachers need to recognize the impor-tance of literature for laughter, releasing tension, and providing enjoyment.

The Golden Goose (King-Smith)Oh No! Where Are My Pants? (Hopkins)Grandy Thaxter’s Helper (Rees)Wake the Dead (Harris)

Cognitive growth and language develop-ment increase capacity for problem solv-ing and word play.

Likes the challenge of solving puzzles and mysteries. High interest in twists of plot, secret codes, riddles, and other language play.

Can You See What I See? (Wick)Math Potatoes (Tang)Cam Jansen and the Lions’ Lunch Mystery (Adler)The Willoughbys (Lowry)

Improved coordination makes profi ciency in sports and games possible and encour-ages interest in crafts and hobbies.

Interested in sports books; wants specifi c knowledge about sports. Enjoys how-to-do-it books.

The Jumbo Book of Needlecrafts (Sadler)National Geographic Photography Guide for Kids (N. Johnson)The Visual Dictionary of Baseball (Buckley Jr.)Africa for Kids (Croze)

Sees categories and classifi cations with new clarity; interest in collecting is high.

Likes to collect and trade paperback books. Begins to look for books of one author or series books.

Dark Day in the Deep Sea (Osborne)The Extreme Team: Wild Ride (M. Christopher)Horrible Harry and the Terrible Revenge (Kline)Meet Addy (Porter)

Seeks specifi c information to answer questions; may go to books beyond own reading ability to search out answers.

Enjoys books that collect facts, nonfi c-tion, and identifi cation books. Requires guidance in locating information within a book and in using the library.

Insectology (Blobaum)Where Did the Butterfl y Get Its Name? (Berger)New Beginnings: Jamestown and the Virginia Colony (D. Rosen)I. Matthew Henson: Polar Explorer (Weatherford)

Later Elementary: Ages 10 and 11


Rate of physical development varies widely. Rapid growth precedes beginning of puberty. Girls are about two years ahead of boys in development. Both increasingly curious about all aspects of sex.

Guide understanding of the growth pro-cess and help children address personal problems. Continued diff erentiation in reading preferences of boys and girls.

Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret (Blume)Llama in the Library (Hurwitz)What’s the Big Secret? Talking about Sex with Girls and Boys (L. Brown and M. Brown)The Period Book (Gravelle)

Understanding of sex role is developing; boys and girls form ideas about their own and each other’s identity.

Books may provide identifi cation with gender roles and impetus for discussion of stereotypes.

Stanford Wong Flunks Big-Time (Yee)Project Mulberry (Park)The Kayla Chronicles (Winston)Guys Write for Guys Who Read (Scieszka)

Increased emphasis on peer group and sense of belonging.

Book choices often infl uenced by peer group. Books can highlight problems with peer pressure.

Moon Runner (Marsden)Some Friend (Bradby)No Talking (Clements)Wringers (J. Spinelli)

Middle Elementary: Ages 8 and 9 (continued)





Deliberate exclusion of others; some expressions of prejudice.

Books can emphasize unique contribu-tions of all. Discussion can be used to clarify values.

Days of Tears (Lester)Yankee Girl (Rodman)Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry (M. Taylor)Brendan Buckley’s Universe and Everything In It (Frazier)

Family patterns changing; may challenge parents’ authority. Highly critical of siblings.

Books may provide some insight into these changing relationships.

Being Bee (Bateson)Bird Lake Moon (Henkes)Al Capone Does My Shirts (Choldenko)Rules (Lord)

Begins to have models other than parents drawn from TV, movies, sports fi gures, books. Beginning interest in future vocation.

Biographies may provide models. Career books broaden interests and provide use-ful information.

Nelson Mandela (Kramer)When Marian Sang (Ryan)What to Do About Alice? (Kerley)Freedom Walkers (Freedman)

Sustained, intense interest in specifi c activities.

Seeks books about hobbies and other interests.

Out Standing in My Field (Jennings)Galileo for Kids (Panchyk)Bodes from the Ash (Deem)Berry Smudges and Leaf Prints (Senisi)

A peak time for voluntary reading. Avid readers welcome challenges and repeated contact with authors, genres.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Rowling)The Search for Belle Prater (White)Forever Rose (McKay)Ever (Levine)

Seeks to test own skills and abilities; looks ahead to a time of complete independence.

Enjoys stories of survival and “going it alone.”

Fish (Matthews)Night of the Howling Dogs (Salisbury)Hatchet (Paulsen)The Higher Power of Lucky (Patron)

Increased cognitive skill can be used to serve the imagination.

Tackles complex and puzzling plots in mysteries, science fi ction, and fantasy. Can appreciate more subtlety in humor.

The Calder Game (Balliett)Lamplighter: Monster Blood Tattoo (Cornish)Framed (Boyce)Starcross (Reeve)

Increased understanding of the chronol-ogy of past events; developing sense of own place in time. Begins to see many dimensions of a problem.

Literature provides opportunities to examine issues from diff erent viewpoints. Guidance needed for recognizing biased presentations.

A Dream of Freedom (McWhorter)Adam Canfi eld: Watch Your Back! (Winerip)The Friends (Yumoto)Emil and Karl (Glatshteyn)

Highly-developed sense of justice and concern for others.

Willing to discuss many aspects of right and wrong; likes “sad stories”; shows empathy for victims of suff ering and injustice.

Gentle’s Holler (Madden)Billy Creekmore (Porter)The Killer’s Tears (Bondoux)Bud, Not Buddy (Curtis)

Searching for values; interested in prob-lems of the world. Can deal with abstract relationships; becoming more analytical.

Valuable discussions may grow out of teacher’s reading aloud prose and poetry to this age group. Questions may help students gain insight into both the con-tent and the literary structure of a book.

The Other Side of Truth (Naidoo)The Brothers’ War: Civil War Voices in Verse (Lewis)The Penderwicks on Gardam Street (Birdsall)The View from Saturday (Konigsburg)

Later Elementary: Ages 10 and 11 (continued)


(continued)




Middle School—Ages 12, 13, and 14


Wide variation in physical development; both boys and girls reach puberty by age 14. Developing sex drive; intense interest in sexuality and world of older teens.

Books provide insight into feelings, concerns. Guidance needed to balance students’ desire for frank content with lack of life experience.

It’s Perfectly Normal (Harris)What My Mother Doesn’t Know (Sones)Achingly Alice (Naylor)The Big Game of Everything (Lynch)

Self-concept continues to grow. Develop-ing a sense of identity is important.

Books help students explore roles, rehearse journey to identity. Many stories based on myth of the hero.

A Wizard of Earthsea (LeGuin)The Hero and the Crown (McKinley)The Great Tree of Avalon: The Eternal Flame (Barron)Absolute Brightness (Lecesne)

Peer group becomes increasingly infl uential; relationships with family are changing.

Concerns about friends and families refl ected in books. School should provide chance to share books and responses with peer group.

How to Build a House (Reinhardt)Breaking Through (Jiménez)A Step From Heaven (Na)Criss Cross (Perkins)

New aspects of egocentrism lead to imagining self as center of others’ atten-tion and feeling one’s own problems are unique.

Students begin to enjoy introspection; may identify with characters who are intense or self-absorbed.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (Alexie)Jazmin’s Notebook (Grimes)Jacob Have I loved (Paterson)White Darkness (McCaughrean)

Cognitive abilities are increasingly ab-stract and fl exible, but not consistently so. New capacity to reason from imagi-nary premises, manipulate symbolic lan-guage, and make hypothetical judgments.

Students read more complex stories, mysteries, and high fantasy that call for complex logic; enjoy science fi ction and high adventure. Metaphor, symbols, and imagery are understood at a diff erent level.

The Land of the Silver Apples (Farmer)The Fire-Eaters (Almond)Darkwing (Oppel)The Star of Kazan (Ibbotson)

Able to apply ideas of relativity to ques-tions of values; girls might see moral issues diff erently than boys do.

Students need discussion time to negoti-ate meanings in stories that pose moral dilemmas.

Shabanu (Staples)The Giver (Lowry)Keeping Corner (Sheth)The Diary of Pelly D (Adlington)

Sensitive to great complexity in human feelings and relationships.

Students seek richer and more complex stories.

Tamar (Peet)Like Sisters on the Home Front (Williams-Garcia)Copper Sun (Draper)Sunrise Over Fallujah (Myers)

Cumulative eff ects of development and life experience produce wide varia-tion among individuals in abilities and interests.

Reading ability and interests in one class may range from early elementary to adult.

The Hobbit (Tolkien)Honeybee (Nye)Ghost Circles (Smith)Saving Juliet (Selfors)

Response is dynamic and open to continuous change as readers anticipate, infer, remember, refl ect, interpret, and connect. The “meaning” and signifi cance of sto-ries like David Almond’s Skellig or The Fire-Eaters will vary from reader to reader, depending on age and per-sonal experience as well as experience with literature.

However, each reader’s response will also change, given time for refl ection, discussion, or repeated readings. Reader response theory also points out that readers approach works of literature in special ways. James Britton proposes that in all our uses of language we can be either participants or spectators.31 In the par-

31James Britton et al., The Development of Writing Abilities (11–18), Schools Council Research Studies (London: Macmillan Education Limited, 1975).


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