It is self-evident that a child’s engagement with good books is significant and valuable in the child’s development. Not only can reading good books expand a child’s cognitive abilities, but it can also spur a child’s emotional, ethical, and spiritual development. However, a quick visit to one of the large online or brick-and-mortar book retailers is enough to make you realize there are zillions of children’s books. Some of these books are good, but many are not. Consequently, if you are looking to buy a book for a child, you are left with a dilemma : “How do we choose a good literature for my kid?”

In this piece of writing we will present the introduction to a greater article series that we hope can go some way toward answering that question in a general way, such that after reading the series (or part of it), you are going to be more equipped to choose a children’s literature, even if you do not have access to reviews or recommendations. We have chosen to write on this topic in a series of articles since we hope to treat the topic in some depth. The roadmap for this series is as such. There is an attempt to explain the considerations that might make a book appealing to the key person we have in mind, namely the child that will engage with the book. Simply put, these are the reasons that the child will like the book. So, for instance, in the articles on subjective appeal we will be speaking about things like humor and illustration quality. Some of these considerations will be general, that is, they will apply to everybody, and some will be particular to the child you have in mind. In addition to simply listing and comprehending these considerations, we will try to emphasize the significance of considering subjective appeal when choosing a children’s literature. Indeed, we will take up the topic of the significance of considering subjective appeal, possibly in our next article series while this be a comprehensive introductory.

After discussing subjective appeal, in another part of the series, we plan to take up the factors relevant to the developmental value of books such as Freedom Jonathan Franzen. The elements we have in mind here are those that allow a book to contribute to a child’s cognitive, emotional, ethical, and even physical development. The supposition here is that as an adult choosing your children to read Freedom by Jonathan Franzen, you set several objectives for your young reader that go beyond sheer enjoyment (though this is important, as we will emphasize); presumably you will want the book to educate or spur growth in the child in some manner, or at least not to detract from this process. In my language, books similar to Oprah Freedom book that educate or spur growth in this method have developmental value.