‘A little child shall lead them’: Tasmanian and Victorian School Readers and National Growth

Reading, one of the ‘three Rs’ still fundamental to educational theory and reconceptualisations of literacy teaching and learning, is a complex socio-cultural practice. Recent attacks on critical literacy approaches to teaching English reveal that what children are taught to read, and how they are taught to read it, is value-laden and contentious (Slattery 2005, p.31). Critics argue for a ‘back to basics’ approach to teaching a love of reading, a reaction to the ‘postmodern literary theory [that] has infiltrated our schools at the expense of comprehension and expression’ (ibid). Yet these same critics appear unaware that the link between children’s literature and ideology was both recognised by, and institutionalised in, Australian school textbooks of nearly 80 years ago. Indeed, in the 1928 preface to the eighth book, the first of the Victorian Readers to be published, the editorial committee was explicit in its intended literary production of young Australians.