Making Connections and Being Able to Identify
For children and adults alike, reading is much more meaningful if characters and situations are relatable. More specifically, readers tend to make connections with the text as they read; in elementary schools teachers stress making text-to-self, text-to- text, text-to-world connections. For example, as part of the morning meeting in my Tuesday Experience classroom, a student will share a story and the others must make connections to their own experiences. In the book, The Girl with the Brown Crayon, the students continually making connections to Leo Lionni’s books and relate to different characters.
As part of the course Children’s Literature, Professor Saphirstein spent a great deal of time focusing on how children crave the opportunity to relate to characters within a text. For example, reading a book about a child who loses a loved one may help the reader deal with death. Books are a fantastic method for helping children feel as though they are not alone in the world -- reading allows children to feel connected to someone going through similar circumstances and dealing with similar emotions. Thinking back to my own childhood, I was able to deal with different situations through reading meaningful books.
All throughout The Girl with the Brown Crayon, students make connections to Leo Lionni books. Reading allows Reeny to connect and identify with characters in books: “Having identified with Frederick, Reeny is compelled to investigate further” (p. 6). Another example of Reeny being able to connect with characters is evident on page 23, “there was a problem at the art table and Reeny’s feelings were hurt [t]hen we read Cornelius and it tells about a similar thing happening.” I predict that Reeny will certainly continue to identify with certain characters in the books she reads, which will allow readers to unravel her personality and unique journey.
