Challenge Thinking and Promote Discourse with Multi-View Books

Multi-view books often portray a story or event from multiple perspectives, introducing the notion that a person’s identity is “social” and developed from the viewpoints of those who interact with a person.

Multi-view books often have an ambiguous or open ending, which leaves the reader with questions or lack of clarification. They can lack a moral or positive message, typical in conventional literature. However they engage challenging and troublesome social issues.

Multi-view books teach empathy and help us to think of the impact we have on those around us. They teach children that everyone sees the world differently and we need to be aware of that.

In general children accept these books with enthusiasm, they promote an awareness and increased sensitivity to social justice and the ability to take action against these injustices.

Great Examples of Multi-View Books for Children

Voices in the Park By Anthony Browne

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The radically different perspectives give a fascinating depth to this simple story which explores many of the author's key themes, such as alienation, friendship and the bizarre amid the mundane.

Anthony Browne's world-renowned artwork is full of expressive gorillas, vibrant colours and numerous nods to Magritte and other artists, while being uniquely Browne's own style.

Hey, Little Ant by Phillip and Hannah Hoose

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The Day The Crayons Quit By Drew Daywalt

When you first see the crayons, you may think the story is too young for your middle grade students – WRONG! This story is filled with sophisticated humour that could be a little over the heads of some younger students. I used this book to explain how different points of view can often reveal personality. A great anchor book for writing, too!

The Wolf Story: What Really Happened to Little Red Riding Hood By Toby Forward

A funny, fractured fairy tale that replays the story of Little Red Riding Hood from the wolf’s point of view. This would be a great anchor book for re-writing a fairy tale from different points of view.

Wonder By R.J. Palacio

Auggie is ten years old but has never attended school. Frequent hospitalizations led his mom to homeschool him. Auggie doesn’t look like other kids. He has facial abnormalities. Auggie says of his face, “I won’t describe what I look like. Whatever you’re thinking, it’s probably worse.”

When Auggie turns ten, his parents decide to send him to school. Wonder is an account, told from multiple points of view, of that year.

Many events in the story feel true to life, sometimes uncomfortably so. Although adults do their best to set Auggie and his peers up for success, cruel behavior still happens and sometimes spins out of control.

Additional references for this topic.

Leland, C. H., and Harste, J. C. (2001). That's not fair! Critical literacy as unlimited semiosis. [online]. Australian Journal of Language and Literacy; v.24, no .3, p.208-219.

Harste, J.C., Vasquez, V., Lewison, M., Breau,A., Leland, C., & Ociepka, A. in press, ‘Supported critical conversations in classrooms’, in Adventuring with Books (4th Edition), ed K. Mitchelle, National Council of Teachers on English, Urbana, Illinois.

Leland, C., Harste, J.C., Ociepka, A., Lewison, M., Vasquez, V. (1999) ‘Exploring Critical Literacy: You can hear a pin drop’, Language Arts, vol 77, no.1, pp.70-77.

Lewison, M., Leland, C. and Harste, J. (2000) Not In My Classroom! The Case For Using Multi-View Social Issues Books With Children. The Australian Journal Of Language and Literacy. Vol.23, No. 1, Feb 2000.

Luke, A. & Freebody, P. (1997), ‘Shaping the social practices of reading’, in Hampton Press, Inc, Cresskill, New Jersey.