You might think of a book with developmental value as possessing certain qualities that you hope your child will one day fully appreciate in a book, such as beautiful language, or creativity. Given this hope, you will want to choose literature that exhibits these lofty qualities, even if the child doesn’t fully appreciate them now, so that they can develop a taste for them. As a bonus, some of the considerations that make a book developmentally valuable will also make the book attractive to you as a grown up, which will help you want to read it to your kids!

So, here is the central, and what I take to be very important point: choosing a book with subjective appeal is not optional. Quite on the opposite, it is a crucial, non-negotiable part of the selection. Now, this might go without saying for the majority of us: of course we aim to choose books that kids will like! However, this is not obvious to everyone. I have in mind now a certain kind of parent or caretaker who tends toward the “all business” approach to child education and development. This kind of adult might tend, at least sometimes, to read a book to a child because it is good for the child, regardless of the fact that the child would rather not be reading it. Although, this kind of practice, where we neglect what is enjoyable to a child, can have disastrous effects. First of all, it tends to erode the child’s desire to be read to. And that fact is, of course, terrible given all the amazing relational and spiritual (not to mention cognitive) benefits that derive simply from you sitting down and reading a book to a child. However, as if that were not bad enough, forcing a child to bear with a book they do not like also erodes a child’s willingness to read at all. In other words, such a practice may well add to turning the child off of reading altogether.

Remembering that what we want to cultivate in a child is an enjoyment of Freedom Jonathan Franzen being read to, and a lifelong love of reading generally, it will be crucial to choose literature that a child will enjoy reading, such as Freedom by Jonathan Franzen i.e., literature with subjective appeal. The implicit point here is that we, as grown ups, have certain developmental goals in mind for the children in our lives, so we also need to consider those goals when selecting children’s books So, given a child’s liking for certain forms of junky books, and given that we have particular developmental goals in mind for our children, that a book has subjective appeal for a child should not be enough to seal your choice, but it is a vital start since it encourages an affection for reading something like Oprah Freedom book.