Adult-Centered

• A text in which the adults are portrayed as strong, caring, sometimes superhuman, knowledgeable individuals, who distribute knowledge and punishment at only the right times – their knowledge and punishment are always justified in the text because adults know better than children
• Some adults in the text may not be strong and caring, but they are the bad people, not representative
• The center of authority and power is Adults and Adulthood
• Adults don’t even have to be present; “Adulthood” alone is a source of authority – children in the text will even go so far as to punish themselves, doing it before adults even need to
• The text portrays a rigid line between Adulthood and Childhood – There is a time when we are a child, and concerned with things of childhood, and a time when we are an adult, and concerned with things of adulthood
• Thus the children portrayed are often nostalgic images of childhood, they act and behave in innocent ways – encounters with evil, death, violence, sexuality (all adult concerns) are frightening because they threaten the fragile time of childhood
• The text therefore raises typically adult concerns or attitudes: on the one hand, admiring with wonder how incredible children are (they are so different from us), on the other hand, being scared for their safety (because adults need to protect children) – Perfect Example: Finding Nemo (or most Disney films)
• The text typically reinforces common assumptions about childhood
• Agency, the freedom to act on one’s behalf, to act meaningfully in the world – in Adult-centered texts children are allowed some degree of agency, but they are granted it by adults – typically, children don’t have much agency in children’s literature because they know less and have fewer experiences than adults
• Also about the book itself – an Adult-centered book has an authoritative, strong adult author handing out lessons – child is put in a passive position, told what to believe – The adult author is right, the child needs to learn what he or she is saying

Child-Centered –

• A text in which the children are portrayed are strong, capable, caring, smart, self-reliant, complex human beings with rich inner lives that are portrayed complexly by the text
• The text raises childhood concerns in all of their complexity, about the joys and fears and trials of being a child – These experiences and emotions are not portrayed in a nostalgic way – The text asserts that the life of a child is complicated, and although different from adulthood, involves all of the feelings of being a human being
• The center of power rests with children, and childhood
• Children resolves issues themselves, tackle complicated problems on their own, save themselves from situations, and count on other children – Perfect Example: opposite of Finding Nemo, movie Spirited Away)
• Adults are portrayed as fallible, nuanced individuals with rich lives of their own – they aren’t always perfect, but they share, they learn, they grow – or they may be absent altogether
• Or adulthood is looked on with suspicion or mockery – There may be no strong adults, or adults may be portrayed foolishly – Or adults are good friends, but they are complicated characters, not static sources of authority and comfort
• Children in the text take their own agency, or wrestle it away from adults, or assert it in compelling ways – or they are the source of their own agency
• The text typically challenges typical adult assumptions about children
• Also, about the book itself – through ambiguity, or other techniques, children are encouraged to take power, to not read the text passively, to be active in making meaning

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What it is not:

Who the main characters are:

Adults can be completely absent in an adult-centered text

But sometimes in child-centered texts adults are completely absent (James and the Giant Peach)

Who is telling the story:

Adult-centered text can be told from a child’s point of view

Merely stupid adults:

some texts, like Married With Children, may ultimately have no center

Questions to ask:

How are adults portrayed?

How are children portrayed?

Are the children portrayed as adults think of them (almost stereotypically)?

Do the children display characteristics we typically don’t think they have?

Are the children trying to be protected?

Is there a rigid line between being an adult and being a child?

Do the children get themselves out of problems?

Who has authority?

What is the text concerned with?

What ideals or assumptions about childhood is the text asserting?

Who has agency?

How does he or she get it?

How is it displayed?

Do adults give out punishment?

Are they understood to be naturally good people, and are their rules beyond question?

Is the reader encouraged to be a passive or an active reader?

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CHILD CENTERED?

• Role Reversal
• Different Degrees:
• 1. Child Acts Like an Adult
• 2. Child and Adult Roles are Switched
• 3. Power relationship is abolished altogether
• Children are source of their own power – have agency
• Reader becomes a participant, not simply a consumer
• The book privileges those things not sanctioned by typical adulthood:
• Playfulness over seriousness
• Laughter, mocking laughter
• Mocking what is official
• Pointing out that adults are hypocrites

o The Unofficial versus the official

§ the voice of children versus voice of authority

§ the underground newspaper

§ the voice of the playground

o Bodily functions

§ a love of things that are gross

o Misbehavior, Mischief

• Self-referential = The book plays with its own quality as a book, emphasizes that it knows it is a book, that it doesn’t have a moral or lesson, that it is aware of what books are “supposed” to do