The Young Children’s Fantasy Play in View of John Burningham’s Picturebooks:The Interpretative Process of a Children’s Books Writer

• Main Authors: Yen, Shu Nu, 嚴淑女
• Other Authors: Yang, Mau Hsiu Peter
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2013
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/45973431724592025200

博士 === 國立臺東大學 === 兒童文學研究所 === 101 === This dissertation was inspired by Vivian Gussin Paley who is an expert on early childhood education in the U.S.A. She takes young children’s fantasy play in preschool very seriously. I conducted a research project in a private preschool in Taitung by using Paley’s teaching model which includes storytelling and story acting in a preschool setting. Additionally, I chose seventeen picturebooks created by John Burningham based on criteria that included the theme of a fantasy story and a main character who was a human child. The main purpose of this dissertation is to investigate how the selected young children respond to John Burningham’s picturebooks in terms of why they need fantasy play in their real life and how the fantasy play designed in these selected books stimulate their thinking. Through the process of storytelling and story acting, as well as the conversational reading responses from the young children, I have considered many issues regarding children’s thinking, early childhood education, and children’s literature. I discuss the impact of these issues on children’s book writers and early childhood educators and propose my own reflection on such impact. The findings of this research support the idea that the young children prove who they are and conquer what they fear through their involvement with fantasy play. Moreover, they use it as a path to discover this real world and invent their own new world. Many cases shown in my research are related to the issues concerning the difference between the adult’s and the young children’s questioning and thinking and the difference between the oral tradition culture and that of literacy. All these obviously suggest a lack of public concern for the spirit of children’s play in the current educational environment. I believe that we should emphasize and popularize the idea that fantasy play and creativity are the center of early childhood education.