Exploring Literature

Take a Trip to Other Worlds

Books transport children to other worlds — sometimes real, sometimes imagined. Great books can provide a jumping-off point to the kinds of wondering and questioning that spawn new ideas and feelings. Whether the destination is serious or silly, joyful or melancholy, children grow from the trip.

In Mommies Say Shhh!, Patricia Pollacco takes babies to an old-world farm bursting with noisy animal life, all eventually surrounding a baby — a baby just like each of them.

Jeron Ashford Frame and R. Gregory Christie provide the opportunity to get inside the world and the head of a very expressive African American boy in Yesterday I Had the Blues. This boy is imagining the feelings of the people he loves and conveys those feelings in rich hues and colorful expressions.

In Diary of a Worm, Doreen Cronin imagines the world of a very humanlike worm, bedecked in a red baseball cap, struggling with schools and sisters. This amusing journal of a worm’s daily life transports a child to a fanciful world previously unimagined.

In each case, a child travels through a journey of identification and imagination: “I could be that baby,” or “I wonder if my Grandpa gets the blues?” or “What would it be like to be a worm?” During these imaginative experiences, children develop their curiosity about other worlds, and naturally want to learn more. They also broaden and deepen their sense of themselves and the world they inhabit.

Read a book, take a trip!

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