Research Report: 

"Chasing Wild Imaginations:  The Influence of the Information Age on Children’s Interaction with Literature"

By Andrea Liedloff, "Letter from Felix" Team

1. Abstract 

The following research involves a brief glance at the history of children’s literature and pays special attention to the transition of children’s stories into a digital form, especially as outlined in the e-book “(Re)imagining the World: Children’s Literature’s Response to Changing Times”.  Furthermore, as it pertains to the Letters from Felix project, “(Re)imagining the World” is an excellent resource for addressing the purpose of the project:  namely, to uncover what is gained and what is lost when children’s stories, especially pop-up books and brilliantly illustrated stories, are converted into a digital, multimedia form and how this new digital literature affects the learning and comprehension of the next generation of children.

     2.  Description and Commentary

In the e-book collection (Re)imagining the World: Children’s Literature’s Response to Changing Times, Wu prefaces by saying, “Changes in reading—both in terms of what is read and how it is accessed—have always characterized children’s literature” (Wu xi).  From vivid color pictures in the 19^th and early 20^th century to the innovative, interactive reading and game play of the iPad and laptop computer, children’s literature “predominantly seeks to convey a positive understanding of reading, modelling for the implied child reader an idealised reading experience that shapes the self and improves the subject’s relation to the world” (Hateley 3).  Books and novels aimed at children are meant to be enjoyable, meshing the realms of learning and imagination, ultimately to “enhance the cultural and social education of a child” and to shape “reading as a meaningful experience” that the child can cultivate later in life (Hateley 3).  Above all, this is the thrust of the “Letters from Felix” project, to enhance and expand the printed adventure story into a multimedia, interactive, uniquely designed and customized webpage in hopes of also stoking the imagination and understanding of the children.  Hinted at in Doughty’s Throw the Book Away, the intent of the project is to move the children beyond simply interacting with the printed literature and even the digitized form, to bringing the concepts of reading and learning and playing into their present realities, and ultimately to create their own worlds through a spirit of imagination and adventure.

            Across cultures, children’s literature centers around what Wu calls “a grand act of imagining”—meaning that “the books children read, the films they see, and the internet games they play participate in the recreation of the world by providing children with new ways of perceiving the world; they provide children with possible worlds and even impossible worlds” (Wu xii).  Within (Re)imagining the World, Wu and other contributing authors assert that children’s literature has benefited from the Internet Age, making books more accessible and perhaps even more playful and enjoyable.  Moreover, in chapter three of the e-book, Alice Curry argues that, “In this milieu of ever-expanding knowledge—dubbed by many the Information Age—information literacy, or in broad terms, the ability to identify, analyse and use information effectively and responsibly, has been heralded by educators as an essential skill for the modern child as well as the life-long learner” (Curry 15).  Rather than limit the child and his imagination, “telephony, wireless internet access, gaming, smart-phone, and tablet” technologies expand the personal interaction and understanding of the child with the literature and allows “an ideal convergence of book and toy, but also of familiarity and innovation” (Hateley 7).  Additionally, with the increasing global reach of the internet, smart phones, and computers, many of today’s children across the world will have access to information and stories like never before, increasing literacy and education, like the creation of the Gutenberg press did hundreds of years prior.  In reference to “Letters from Felix”’s webpage version, children in many different cultures and timezones are able to navigate through the story and interact with cultures and peoples not their own.

            In the 1990’s and early 2000’s, in lieu of the tablets and smart phones that developed later, “CD-ROMS were published which brought together ‘book’ and ‘game’ versions of a text, and to varying degrees of success combined them with a meaningful textual environment that emphasized the fun potential of reading and the learning potential of computer games” (Hateley 7).  As technology developed and advanced, and more children had access to internet and tablets, makers of these new technologies, like Apple, capitalized on this new, very cost-effective way of educating children.  Looking closer at the first chapter, Erica Hateley analyzes the influence of new technologies like the iPad and laptop computer that “combine both reading and playing” on the children of the Digital Age (Hateley 8).  As Hateley aptly explains, interactive literature available on tablets, like the popular Heart and the Bottle book application, “takes advantage of the iPad’s swipe, pinch, and other gestural controls and also utilizes the possibility of turning or tilting the iPad and having objects respond on the screen as though to real physics” (Hateley 8).  Thus, within digitized children’s literature, for the child there is “a feeling of contributing to the forward movement of the narrative” especially when clickable, movable, multimedia options are incorporated (Hateley 9).  In reference to the “Letters from Felix” project, Hateley’s research informs the online version of the project, where the traditional adventure stories of characters roaming the world, like “Letters from Felix” and the Flat Stanley character, is converted from print to digital, with video, sound, pictures, and cultural and political information added to the story, in hopes of created a more thorough, holistic, and interactive story for children to explore.

            The “Letters from Felix” project, in converting a paper, pop-up adventure story into a multimedia, digitized webpage, provides an expanded and a more play-oriented way for children to interact with literature.  The hope, again, is to stimulate the mind and wild imagination of today’s children, moving them from reading literature, to interacting with it, to creating and perpetuating their own stories and ideas.  Conversely however, as the literature takes different forms, the focus shifts from reading literature to playing literature and even gaming; thus, the voice and style of the author is lost or distorted.  How can the “Letters from Felix” project stay true to the author and idea behind the work?  More than that, how does the interactive, game-like feel of digitized literature affect the future of printed text and traditional reading?  Is moving children beyond “simple reading” the main goal?  Is traditional literature no longer as valuable?  In the digital age, reading the written word, in many ways, is taking a backseat to the flashier digitized stories and iPad apps that children can interact with and manipulate.  In (Re)imagining the World, Hateley poignantly concludes that, “for now, it seems that books are being re-imagined, but reading has not yet necessarily found its new time” (Hateley 11). 

     3.  Resources for Further Study

Cope, B., Kalantzis, M. Multiliteracies: Literacy Learning and the Design of Social Future. Routledge, London, 2000.

Curry, Alice; Hateley, Erica; Wu, Yan. (Re)imagining the World: Children's Literature's Response to Changing Times. Berlin; New York: Springer. 2013.     

Doughty, Amie A. Throw the Book Away: Reading versus Experience in Children's Fantasy. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc. 2013.