Young readers as detectives: a research proposal for democratic reading practices

This paper wants to answer two questions: which types of detectives are children in silent books (s.b.)? Which type of investigations do they carry on? Starting from some possible answers, we will talk about one of the main characteristics of the s.b.: the richness of details. A detective is particularly accurate and curious, believing in the importance of even the smallest fragment, hoping to find the missing one that will lead him/her to solve the case. In the same way, the reader of s.b. becomes an investigator: missing of the guideline usually provided by written text, he/she needs to trust the narrative power of images and investigate them in detail, so to come to his/her personal discovery of the story. Any detail, however small and seemingly insignificant, can lead to multiple interpretations and give voice to everyone’s opinion, constituting a democratic community of readers. On these basis, one could build a participated action research in primary school.