| Summary: | Recent literature documents the tremendous increase in interest among researchers and educators in family literacy practices and the relationship between the social and academic lives of children. Significant research contributions have also been made by those who have explored more specifically, the role of children's literature within the family context in the lives of children and adults and in their relationships with one another. Other researchers have spent months and years observing, describing, and coding family literacy practices, including a focus on parents and children reading books. Current research offering historical perspectives regarding the role of children's literature in the family context is also critical to our understanding of the ways in which children's literature reflects the time and culture that produces it. The significance of the work of these researchers warrants further exploration regarding specific individual experience with children's literature in the family context. Researchers' explorations of the intricacies of such experience, obtained via the voices of individuals, hold the potential to offer insight which complements, refines and extends the scope of existing research aimed at improving educational practice and informing educational policy. Children's experiences with literature within the family often provide a framework for the kind of experiences that they have later on in other settings. Through in-depth interviewing, this study explores the specific experiences and influences, past and present, of individual participants with regard to children's literature in the family context. Participants explore the meaning of these experiences, and the influences of these experiences in their lives as parents. Through a process of transcribing the interview tapes, crafting participant profiles, and analyzing the data, this researcher then explores the salient issues within individual profiles and among profiles, which may ultimately extend the scope of existing research.
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