ABSTRACT
Terman (1925), in his study of the reading interests of his gifted subjects, found that the gifted group read over a much wider range of material than the control group. Nevertheless, books on mystery and adventure comprised 37 per cent of the gifted group’s total reading over the two months of the reading survey, while informational fiction, including the classics, comprised 13 per cent, and fairy tales, folk tales and legends allowed for another 7 per cent. Lists of specially favoured books, kept by each child in the gifted group, contained a high proportion of books that are today considered classics, such as Stevenson’s Treasure Island and Kidnapped, Dickens’ Oliver Twist and David Copperfield and the high adventure novels of Dumas. Ten years later, Witty and Lehman (1936) confirmed the interest of gifted children in mystery and adventure, and noted the rising interest in detective fiction.
