ABSTRACT
Literature provides an avenue of cultural knowledge from which children can learn cultural ways of thinking. The aspect of interest to us is the use of private speech, or self-talk, in this literature. It is our contention that private speech in children’s literature is a way that sociocultural sense-making is given explicit form. Our assumption is that ways of thinking are at first social and then come to be used individually. Since private speech in children’s literature may contribute to an explicitly represented pattern of thinking to which children in literate cultures are exposed, a closer look at it is warranted. In this chapter, the following two questions are posed: What form does private speech in children’s literature take? What is available for young readers to understand about thinking as represented in private speech through this medium of cultural expression?
