“Because she can fly”

Readers of different ages and their (least) favourite characters in Joke van Leeuwen’s Iep! 

Abstract

What makes a fictional character someone’s favourite? One of the factors scholars have explored is overlapping identity markers, for instance when boy readers favour boy characters. This article extends that discussion to age by discussing data gathered in individual interviews and focus-group conversations with 18 readers between the ages of 9 and 75. In the interviews, readers were asked about their favourite character in the children’s book Iep! (1996) by Joke van Leeuwen. Readers up to the age of 14 all selected younger characters as their favourites, whereas older readers selected favourite characters from a wider range of age groups, including younger characters. Younger readers named distinct traits as their reason for selecting a character as their favourite, such as “Because she can fly”, whereas adult readers also cited external factors for liking a character, such as a character reminding them of someone. Regarding the characters that readers did not like, readers up to the age of 11 were unable to select a character they did not like, whereas the majority of adults found this easy. Of these unpopular characters, only a small minority were children; in the main, adult readers disliked adult characters. Interestingly, several child readers defended adult characters disliked by adult readers.