The author draws on his own extensive research in urban classrooms to present a comprehensive, grounded theoretical model of children’s understanding of picture storybooks―the first to focus specifically on young children. Advancing a much broader and deeper theory of literary understanding, the author suggests that children respond in five different ways during picture storybook readalouds; that these responses reveal that children are engaged in different types of literary meaning-making; and that these types of meaning-making are examples of five foundational aspects of literary understanding.

Capturing the liveliness of children’s responses, this dynamic volume:

• Describes picture storybooks as sophisticated aesthetic objects worthy of children’s literary critical abilities.
• Offers a theory of literary understanding that is relevant to contemporary young children from a wide variety of ethnic, racial, and socioeconomic backgrounds.
• Includes a wealth of examples of children’s responses to literature and how teachers scaffold their interpretation of stories.
• Examines the significance of young children’s literary interpretation, factors that influence literary understanding, and implications for practice and further research.