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P A R T I :
Entering the World of Children’s Literature
To determine the style an author used in a book, ask yourself these questions: 
•
What kinds of words and sentences did the author choose to tell the story?
•
Was there any distinctive language, choice of words, or sentence construction? 
What mood did this create?
•
What effect might the author be trying to achieve?
Tone 
Tone 
Tone involves the author’s attitude toward the book’s subject, characters, and read-
ers. Tone is often quite subtle and may not be easy to pinpoint. In addition, an author 
may change the tone as the main character or the supporting characters change. Some 
examples of appropriate tones used in books for children include serious, humorous, 
moralistic, hopeful, sympathetic, wondrous, longing, loving, satirical, and nostalgic. 
Children’s literature is particularly likely to have a didactic tone. The literary 
elements truly suffer when the story has been created around a message instead of 
having a message flow naturally from the story. 
Like style, tone is developed through the author’s choice of words and through the 
way all the elements of the story work together. Because tone influences the meaning of 
a story, it is important for children to grasp it in order to comprehend the story. For ex-
ample, consider the misconceptions that would arise if a child read a tall tale such as the 
story of Paul Bunyan and believed the author’s tone was serious rather than humorous.
R
esponding to Literature 
Not all children love books. I remember Carla, a fifth grader who transferred to my 
classroom at midsemester. When she first made the weekly trip to the library with my 
class, I noticed she was the only one who did not check out a book. I inquired why 
and she exclaimed, “Because I hate book reports!” Apparently, the only time Carla 
had read a library book was to do an assignment, so she associated books with work. 
There are so many ways to respond to and extend literature that I hope teachers 
are not still requiring their pupils to do written book reports. One alternative is to 
have a child show some of the illustrations and briefly describe the book to children 
in the class or in a small group. This is called a book talk, and it is a superior way 
to get children interested in reading a variety of books. (Book talks are explained in 
more detail in Chapter 14 .) A great resource for teachers is Book Talk and Beyond: 
Children and Teachers Respond to Literature (Roser & Martinez, 1995). This book 
contains information on a variety of activities, such as focus units, language charts, 
webbing, grand conversations, literature circles, dramatizing, and literature journals. 
These and other activities are introduced throughout this text. If you would like to 
look ahead at these, you may find the list and page numbers in the Subject Index 
under “Literature responses and activities.” 
Gloria Houston, the author of several historical fiction books, has studied 
reader response theory for many years. Her explanation and application of reader 
response follows.
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