Should children only read about the life they know?

Primary school teachers in the UK have criticised an English test of 10- and 11-year-olds because the text included background that was not part of the children’s culture. They said it was unfair as the children had no experience of the setting.

It made me wonder if children should only be exposed to stories from their own way of life. I remember being given an excerpt from The Kontiki Expedition to answer question on when I was about 11. It was the first time I had read about travel adventure, and it opened my little world – people travelled for adventure! I’d thought they only travelled to visit relatives or for work. I knew nothing about the Pacific current, the Peru and Tahiti. But that brief passage from the book stayed with me, as did the author’s name, Thor Heyerdahl. Last year, I found the book, reissued, and took nothing but joy in reading the recreation of a transport passage from South America to the Pacific Isles.

Similarly reading Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, what is a little Scottish girl supposed to know about the culture of the American south in the 19^th century. However, I loved every minute of the adventure, have reread both novels as an adult and read more work by Mark Twain. And it is thanks, I believe, to that childhood exposure.

When my children were growing up in Texas, I feared their only heroes were the ones they saw on television – those who wore jumpsuits in primary colours or lived in turtle shells. So I began telling them Greek myths, starting with Theseus and moving on to the Trojan War and the horse that brought it all to an end. My kids knew nothing about ancient Greece, but they loved a good story, especially one that used guile to overcome danger. They remember those stories still and use them as cultural references when life throws problems.

So, should we give children only stories set in familiar territories and times? Should we keep tales to their well-known stereotypes, the paths they know well? But why water their minds on such thin ground? I think we should take their imaginations to new and fertile lands. Let them grow.

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