Professor Maria Nikolajeva gave a lecture at Cambridge University about the importance of children’s books. She is featured in two online articles that pull from that speech.
One Press Association article focuses on books being important for child development.
The creative employment of language in children’s books give the child the power of expression… By challenging the arbitrary rules of language, especially written language, children learnt to be critically thinking individuals.
I’d take that one step further and say that books also lead to connections between diverse people and a level of understanding simply from seeing the world through someone else’s eyes.
A Telegraph article focuses on the professor’s appreciation of puns, nonsense and made-up words.
A lot of people presume that writing children’s literature is relatively simple, but in fact it demands great sophistication.
She uses many books to make her case, including Winnie-the-Pooh and its Heffalumps, Harry Potter and the magical language, Dr. Seuss, and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
Waking Brain Cells 
Thank you for this. I recently checked out a book from the library that purposely uses bad grammar and mispronounciation throughout – The Uglified Ducky. The author state upfront that the narrator has his own language, but it still feels strange to say words like “deflection” for reflection and “demember” for remember. The first time through, I corrected the mistakes, so as not to confuse my 5-year-old, and then we listened to the author read the book on the accompanied CD and it was funny to hear the kids laugh and correct many of the mistakes. So is it bad to have poor language in a children’s book, on purpose? I’d love your thoughts.
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There was a huge issue with this about Junie B. Jones, who has her own grammar and way of speaking, when the books first came out and proved to be amazingly popular with children. For me, it is more about ARE they reading than WHAT ARE they reading. Yes, they should have great books in their lives as well, but that is our job as parents, teachers and librarians. What they find on their own is fine (unless the subject matter is too mature of course).
I read Uglified Duckling and really enjoyed the wordplay which is how I viewed it. But I can see your concerns. Not sure I have a great answer for this, but I’d love to hear more about what you and others think!
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Watching these generic images in 3-D – a disingenuous war against piracy that has been disguised as “immersive” and “revolutionary: – doesn’t help. What exactly is so immersive about tea cups almost hitting you in the face? At least James Cameron tried experimenting with 3-D’s depth-of-field when he made FernGully in Space. Here, the effect is so cheap and gimmicky that I kept wishing the Red Queen would cry “off with his head” and let the 3-D axe end my suffering once and for all.
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