It feels like I am disappearing into the books. Childrens favourite books, reading experiences and reading from childrens and childrens librarians perspectives

The aim of this master thesis is to obtain a greater understanding of childrens choice of favourite books, insight in their reading experiences and their thoughts about the reading of these books. We also want to investigate if, and if so, how childrens librarians obtain knowledge of the childrens reading preferences and reading experiences and how they use this knowledge in their work to stimulate childrens reading. To reach our aim we have been carrying out quantitative interviews with six children aged nine to ten years and three childrens librarians working in public libraries. As a theoretical starting point we use the reader-oriented theory and Chambers Reading circle, which states that support from adults is the most important factor in the childs reading process. The empirical results are linked to theories and earlier research and are analysed under four different themes. The results show that the majority of the favourite books chosen by the children are adventure stories. However, the children did not choose the same books and this suggests that each child feels something special for his or her choice. This corresponds with what the reader-oriented theory states, namely that meaning is created between the reader and the text and it points out the importance of using the readers perspective, in this case the reading child. The interviews with the childrens librarians confirm the importance of focusing on the child. For that reason we have reworked the Reading circle, placing the child in the centre as the main influence factor in the reading process.Uppsatsnivå: