There kinds of reactions raise question about picturebooks that challenge the child reader(by dealing with subject matter such as sex,death.adoption,suicide,disability,etc.).Should such books be read alone by children or shouldadults be available to discuss and respond to the kind og questions that will inevitably be asked? Martin(2000:249)ask "Do small children need more heip distinguishing between fact and fantasy?Are they likely to do whatever they see or read about in books,such as talking to stranger?" There is evidently still much debate about whether children should be protected from such issues in books,but the fact remains that such sensitive and emotional issues can be dealt with if adults are avialable to discussany question or queries that many arise.The importance of responding to books is crucial to enable children to make sense og books at all levels of complexity;whether Lucy Brown was"ill-conceived"or not is immaterial to the fact that children need to be givec opportunity to talk about and respong to texts.
In considering the different ways in which picturebooks can be responded to,Frank Serafini(2007),in a conference paper,propose four "So What?" points to focus our thoughts.He suggests that:
1.The complexity of picturebooks should not be understand.
2.Teachers need a theoretical foundation and vocabulary to talk about images.
3.There are numerous perspective that one canring to picturebooks.
4.Picturebooks offer a connection between school-based literacies and multiliteracies.