Space, Place, and Children's Reading Development - (Bloomsbury Perspectives on Children's Literature) by Margaret Mackey

About the Book

"This open access book is a unique study of the impact of lived experience on literate life, exploring how children's reading development is affected by their home setting, and how this sense of place influences textual interpretation of the books they read. Based on qualitative research and structured around interviews with twelve participants, Space, Place and Children's Reading Development focuses on the digital maps and artistic renderings these readers were asked to create of a place (real or imagined) that they felt reflected their literate youth, and the discussions that followed about these maps and their evolution as readers. Analysing the participant's responses, Margaret Mackey looks at the rich insights offered about the impact on childhood stability after experiences such as migration; the 'reading spaces' children make based on their social relationships and domestic spheres; the creation of 'textual spaces' and the significance of the recurring motif of forests in the participants' maps; the importance of the Harry Potter novels; the basis of life-long reading habits; psychological spaces and whether readers visualize when they read. Blending theoretical perspectives on reading from many disciplines with the personal experiences of readers of diverse nationalities, languages, disciplinary interests and life experiences, this is an enlightening account of the behaviours of readers, reading histories and place-based reader responses to literature. By building greater understanding about the broad and subtle processes that enable people to read, this study refines the kind of questions we ask about reading and moves towards developing a multidisciplinary language for the study and discussion of reading practices in contemporary times. The open access edition of this book is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada"--

Book Synopsis

This open access book is a unique study of the impact of lived experience on literate life, exploring how children's reading development is affected by their home setting, and how this sense of place influences textual interpretation of the books they read. Based on qualitative research and structured around interviews with twelve participants, Space, Place and Children's Reading Development focuses on the digital maps and artistic renderings these readers were asked to create of a place (real or imagined) that they felt reflected their literate youth, and the discussions that followed about these maps and their evolution as readers. Analysing the participant's responses, Margaret Mackey looks at the rich insights offered about the impact on childhood stability after experiences such as migration; the "reading spaces" children make based on their social relationships and domestic spheres; the creation of "textual spaces" and the significance of the recurring motif of forests in the participants' maps; the importance of the Harry Potter novels; the basis of life-long reading habits; psychological spaces and whether readers visualize when they read.

Blending theoretical perspectives on reading from many disciplines with the personal experiences of readers of diverse nationalities, languages, disciplinary interests, and life experiences, this is an enlightening account of the behaviors of readers, reading histories, and place-based reader responses to literature. By building greater understanding about the broad and subtle processes that enable people to read, this study refines the kind of questions we ask about reading and moves towards developing a multidisciplinary language for the study and discussion of reading practices in contemporary times.

The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Review Quotes

"I am frequently in awe of Mackey's methodological techniques, and this study is her best to date. Her seemingly simple starting points - a reader, a story, a map - open up into rich multimodal evidence that captures the experience and impact of reading in its immediate context and in the long-term ... Mackey has produced an important piece of scholarship that responds admirably to many urgent questions in the field of children's literature. She provides empirical evidence that supports many of the claims made by cognitive narratologists. At the same time, she sharpens arguments against generalising about how readers will respond to the affordances of a text. Above all, this work is a celebration of children and their books." --International Research in Children's Literature

"This is a fascinating, engaging, and thought-provoking book. In it we are privileged to journey alongside Margaret Mackey as she perceptively investigates the reading childhoods of twelve readers and the ways in which their early life experiences illuminate their reading experiences. Drawing on a rich interdisciplinary research base, she details each reader's uniqueness and the common patterns in their perspectives. Margaret's skills as a literary explorer and insightful scholar ring out from the text and advance our understanding of reading as grounded - situated and embodied. Through examining reading in motion and the alluring concept of a lifelong reading space, she challenges researchers and educators to think differently about reading and being a reader." --Professor Teresa Cremin, The Open University, UK

About the Author

Margaret Mackey is Professor Emerita at the University of Alberta, Canada. She has authored five books (most recently One Child Reading: My Auto-Bibliography), edited four, and written over a hundred refereed articles and book chapters. She edited Children's Literature in Education for eleven years.