ABSTRACT
Books for children have changed along with paradigms of childhood. There has been a pendulum swing between two extremes. In the 17th and early 18th centuries, children were considered deficient adults and had to be initiated to the adult world. In the early 20th century, the pendulum was at the other extreme: Books aligned with children’s cognition. The current trajectory points back to accelerated cognitive and linguistic growth toward adult attainment. Early acquisition and literacy are expected to pay later dividends in learning and scholastic achievement. The introduction offers stipulative definitions for basic terms such as acquisition (triggered maturation), learning (negotiated salience), and information (schemas and scripts that can be related to one another dynamically).
