Inter-textuality in young readers as a sign of comprehension
One of the challenges of reading any illustrated book today is having the required references to take full advantage of what the author is trying to say. Inter-textual hints have always been present in literature, enabling new worlds to be made out of old texts (Lundin. 1998). It is frequent to find in stories, words that refer to other readings, phrases that evoke images captured at other times and spaces, forms and figures in illustrations that connect to styles, works and other appreciated artists. Consequently, it is not the same to face a book with a “blank head” instead of doing it full of experiences that allow the reader to seize up all text and graphic details that today 's authors tend to slip into their own works. These inter-textual connections are evident in all genres of literature and often used as literary figures in some cases.
…show more content…
In fact, normally "our audience consists of personal encyclopedias and expectations that may be not only different, but even strongly contradictory" (Hilario 2006 in Barrena, 2006). Given this complex reality: How should the mediator act? How can meet the particular needs of each reader? What inter-textual references must we contextualize and which not? In my opinion, the issue is not on the reference itself, but on the possibility of making personal meaning through connections, whichever they are. We need to read lots to our children and students nowadays and allow them to talk and express their feelings and opinions about the reading to make sure that they can enrich their knowledge of other works.
We need to provide young readers their own personal recall of adventures, deeds and battles. So, when they find a book like Bastian did in Michael Ende’s The Neverending Story (1983),
“Bastian looked at the