Children’s Literature is a peculiar genre in that its intended audience is imagined and its writers are far removed from the readers. When writing/creating a character, it’s easiest to draw from one’s own life to shape his/her experiences. I would imagine that there would be a lot of backlash if the entirety or great majority of African American literature was written by upper/middle class white men. Sure, there’s a great deal of imagination that goes into writing a story, but when the voice of an entire minority is being represented in literature by those in power, erasure happens. Children’s Literature is characterized by a lack of proper representation of those it portrays. Adults write for children and thus, assume this abstract reader. In Jonathan Klassen’s “How to Read Children’s Literature,” the reader adult writers imagine is called the “implied reader.” Klassen explains that the implied reader is “a role the text implies,” but what happens when the child isn’t the reader we assumed him/her to be?

What happens when adults imagine this nonexistent child and it doesn’t match up to the actual children who are reading? If children are seen as “other” and yet are seen as lacking sovereignty over themselves, completely dependent, and inferior to the adults they will one day become, this “implied reader” does no justice to the real child reader whose mind and imaginary worlds are viewed upon with condescension. What would it mean for our society to fully accept children as conscious citizens rather than wild animals that need to be tamed and how would that reflect in children’s literature and how it’s viewed?