ABSTRACT
It is important that as educationalists we regularly re-examine our fixed certainties about the values embedded in the curriculum choices we make and the resources we teach them, by submitting both to rigorous review. This chapter describes how one teacher worked to develop competent, critical and engaged readers. In particular it focuses on how she re-examined the role that books, particularly those designated in the curriculum as ‘literature’ or with ‘literary merit’, might play in the curriculum. It argues the case for fusing the concerns of popular culture with the teaching of classic works of children's literature, widening teachers' critical understanding of multi-modality in the creation of fantasy. Further, it suggests that there is a role for teacher educators and researchers to support teachers in their struggle to make increasingly regulated curricula their own to the benefit of their children.
