viewed as parallels rather than as possible replacements for the book, which has its own
logic and integrity. Similarly, the children’s book ought not to worry about being an
adult book scaled up or down, as is sometimes alleged, any more than the adult book
should fear the converse. Each learns from and invigorates the other.
It is gradually coming to be accepted that, once children can cope with the mechanics
of reading, at any age, a dramatic drop in apparent type size is not only possible but
actively desirable. This visual acuity can only be compared, at the opposite extreme of
depth of field, to children’s phenomenal ability to recognise the make of oncoming motor
cars. A carefully judged drop in typesize, recommended at this stage in reading
development, draws attention away from the identity of the single letter, the particular
squashed fly on the page, in order to concentrate on the recognition of words and word
groups. And so, for the purpose of continuous reading, the journey towards adult
obliviousness of the design of the typeface that is being read is well under way.
As for adults, it is true that the recurrence of an eccentrically designed character (of
the kind designers call ‘spot letters’ and which sometimes mar otherwise functional
typefaces) can become a major source of subjective distraction for the young reader.
Experienced book designers develop an eye for those aesthetic qualities in a particular
typeface which determines its suitability for sustained and pleasurable reading, and
shun the hundreds of available versions which fail to meet these exacting standards.
The ease and quality of reading is further conditioned and enhanced, at a level which
should remain subconscious for the reader, by the careful matching of type, paper, ink
and print quality; and this is also very much the designer’s concern.
On the surface it might sound a reasonable idea that during the crucial initial
learning stages the teachers’ writing on the blackboard, the type found in books, and the
letter shapes the children are taught to write should all share the same generic shapes
and directness so that writing, lettering and print are seen to have the same purpose
and to belong together, as advocated in a recent survey (Sassoon 1993). But outside a
strictly controlled classroom environment this is wishful thinking, since in practice the
child is at the same time faced with an incredible range of letter forms in the high street
and on television, on the cereal packet and in the comic. In fact, I don’t think that this
typographic Babel confuses children in the least, for they identify flash cards of all but
extreme examples where the rules for letter recognition have been broken in any case,
and find it fascinating to compare the countless inventive variations which can be made
from the same letter shape. Children rarely find difficulty in making the distinction
between rational typefaces for continuous reading and those for display—types for use
and types for fun. They also appreciate typographical jokes!
Teachers and librarians are often keen to find out just which typefaces and sizes of
type are best for a particular age group; but it is not easy to explain how in typography
everything depends on everything else and that it is necessary to relate these questions
to such matters as the size of the book, the length and nature of the text, and a host of
other factors. The desire to confirm such hypotheses as ‘sans serif typefaces are more
readable than seriffed ones’, or ‘that the ideal size for 6 to 8-year-olds is 14–18 pt’ is the
reef on which a great deal of legibility research has foundered.
Common-sense decisions about page and type sizes can be arrived at by trying to see
a situation through the users’ eyes—and not eyes alone but other senses too. For
458 THE CONTEXT OF CHILDREN’S LITERATURE