July 30th 2018
Today’s topic is the use of slang in children’s books: should we or shouldn’t we use it? Is there any middle ground? Well I am of two minds really. On the one hand, children seeing their usual, spoken language in the books they read might find it helps them to relate better to the written word. This in turn might encourage them to keep reading and to spread the word to their peers or siblings. On the other hand, surely when stories are written down, we as the adults in the industry, should take that opportunity to introduce teachable moments. If the immortalized written word is deliberately misspelled or invokes improper pronunciation when reading aloud, are we doing our children a disservice?