The Braid of Literature: Childrenus Worlds of Reading,

Three-year-old Lindsey approached her mother wearing a stocking as a cap, its long leg dangling over her shoulder. I'm Rapunzel, she announced, and this is my braid. As parent, reading partner, and social science observer, Shelby Wolf documented countless moments like this one during the preshcool and early grade-school years of her daughters, Lindsey and Ashley. Over nine years, she taped their book-reading times together and kept detailed field notes, collected the girls' drawings and similar artifacts, and transcribed spontaneous incidents of talk and dramatic play. In The Braid of Literature, her observations and analysis interweave with Shirley Brice Heath's commentary to present these materials within the context of current research in anthropology, linguistics, and cognitive psychology. Together, they have produced a study of two young children who are learning to negotiate between the multiple texts of their everyday lives and their make-believe story worlds.