I recently read a review by a university professor slamming a children’s picture book because it depicted unsafe actions by the characters. I won’t say what the books is because I happen to love it and so do the children I read it to. It makes them laugh.
A lot of that laughter comes from the slightly uncomfortable, if unconscious feeling that what’s going on in the story shouldn’t and probably couldn’t happen. In other books there is vocabulary that we might not use, again soliciting uncomfortable giggles.
Wouldn’t you say that’s the beginning of critical thinking?
My message:
![Sometimes characters in books say and do things that you would never say or do. [Shocking!!!] That doesn't mean that there are other people in the world who wouldn't say or do those things. There are all kinds of people in the world. [Thinking...] We grow by understanding others and then making our own choices.](https://schoollibrarybeyondsurvival.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/critical-thinking.jpg)
Beyond Survival in a School Library 