Diane stressed the importance of exposing children to quality literature that offer stories rich in vocabulary, with characters that readers care about and care about what happens to them. Diane flagged the genre of Bibliotherapy, which offers books that are written with a direct message of how to cope or how to respond to a situation, akin to self-help for children. While self help books can be helpful and have their place, they are not to be confused with literature.
Diane explained that literature is not meant to be a lesson, but a way to enter into an experience that helps a reader understand his or her thoughts and feelings. Reading literature is often very therapeutic in that is helps us better understand ourselves and others, but literature and self help books have little in common.
