How Fictional Representations of Intergenerational Play May Be Important for Child Readers: A Cognitive Approach

Abstract

This chapter uses the perspective of cognitive criticism to look into representations of intergenerational play in children’s fiction, particularly focusing on the complex and subtle interplay of thoughts and feelings evoked by intergenerational interactions. Intergenerational play is understood as a voluntary activity in which one crosses generational dividing lines through initiating and becoming fully absorbed in a relationship with people from a supposedly different generation. The result of this activity is both self-transforming and boundary-breaking. This chapter addresses a question of fundamental importance: What makes literary representations of intergenerational play important for the child reader? It is argued that child readers can find fiction to be a potential source of knowledge about older generations and their feelings. Deploying various narrative resources, fiction can also create a simulation of how child readers navigate social situations with older generation members in real life, encouraging them to cultivate, improve, and test the cognitive and affective skills expedient for handling intergenerational relationships. The conclusions are supported by a detailed analysis of Lane Smith’s Grandpa Green that employs cognitive criticism and draws on Wolfgang Iser’s notion of the implied reader.