How do you think young readers might benefit from reading stories of adventure--one in which a character or group undertakes a journey, facing and overcoming obstacles along the way? If you can recall an adventure story you read when younger, use that as an example.

This is something young readers might often find themselves doing in one form or another. The first day at school, going to a playground that’s unusual and eating lunch with strange kids that you don’t know, then later in life things like your first car trip driving alone or learning to socialize, these could all be situations in which you could relate experiences from adventure novels. Thinking of these brave individuals, like Winnie the Pooh and Christopher Robin off looking for honey and helping their friends or Robinson Crusoe living on his own on an island though he came from a good family back in York, it makes our more everyday tasks seem easier. When I was little I read The Boxcar Children. These were four siblings who all lived in a boxcar and had to take care of each other. I would play things out and say that our porch was my boxcar. Then at school after my friends and I watched X-Men or Power Rangers, we’d play around as if we were them. I feel like it helped us all learn to socialize and interact together better.

The best post so far on kid's tendencies to go on imaginary adventures and how that might make them "take" to adventure stories, AND on how adventure stories and make us see and approach life AS an adventure.
As I asked others,however, how does this differ from the benefits of literature in other genres (such as fantasy or sci fi) which contain (both group and individual*) adventures? What make adventure stories, in themselves, differ?
* The socialization thing also applies to any text in which characters depend on each other.

For all three stories, our regular questions in one prompt: Pretend you're a teacher or parent (unless you are one). For what age groups are each of these stories most appropriate and why? How would you teach these stories to or share them with your students or children (for younger kids, focus on the Defoe or Milne; for older--but not too old--focus on the Konigsberg)? What would be your objectives? Activities to fulfill these?

I don’t feel like I’d want to work with Robinson Crusoe. While it’s a good story, I don’t like it because its form is so different from other writing that I would introduce to young people. The lack of separated dialogue really bothers me, but that might be personal choice there. The basic adventure of it is great and remarkable, there is something to be said for it being the first of its kind and one of the earliest examples of a novel with appeal to the young adult market, but I feel this telling is out of doubt terribly. If I wanted to use something like it, I’d probably go more for “The Swiss Family Robinson” which was inspired by DeFoe’s novel, while being written to teach the author’s children morals and self reliance. Not that children in this day and age will need some of the lessons that might have been more literal in the early 1900’s, but still. As an adventure book, its fine and good, just I feel there are better materials out there.
Having said that, all things considered I feel like it would be appropriate for children of maybe the 6-12 age range. This is when the child is learning their limits, how far they can take something and at what point they fail. The adventure story reinforces the independence they have already understood between 3-6 (version of this story might be good for that age range as well on the subject of independence.) and can encourage discussion of taking different methods to get to a certain end. What could Crusoe have done differently? How could he have handled the situation with Friday better? I really feel the story could use an update to be truly useful though. It can easily be used as a stepping stone to other adventure novels, like “The Swiss Family Robinson,” “Little House on the Prairie,” “Johnny Tremain” and book series like “The Boxcar Children.”
Winnie the Pooh is definitely excellent for the 3-6 age range. That’s when I recall Pooh being introduced to me. Many of the characters are very much like children themselves. Obviously Christopher Robin is a child, but he takes the lead here. Pooh is also like a child, but one that is almost younger and needs to be taught and explained to by Christopher Robin. The characters are similar to different parts of the child’s own feelings. Pooh is loyal and tries very hard, Rabbit is sort of grumpy, but he means well like a parents, poor Piglet is always frightened and is to be protected. Within these stories, a child could easily take on any role they wish safely. Pooh has such a rich history and it still well known today (I think it is at least!) so I feel like this would be easier to work with. Pooh is a kid friendly, lots of animals that you know and I feel it harkens back to the animal fables with a little less moral basis maybe. You could relate these characters to others from those stories, picking favorites and making suggestions for other characters, like maybe a Fox character or something fun. Children could draw out their favorite scenes or write their own song about their adventures.

Were you perhaps also put off by the racism in this version of "Crusoe?" (BTW: The designation of "Crusoe" as the first novel in English is shaky.)
You spend a LOT of time on this, and I'm curious as to why you didn't hook into the survival-on-a-deserted-island element.
LOL on Pooh being like animal fables with less of a moral message. Thing is, aren't these also Christopher's STUFFED animals? So how about getting young children to write about their adventures with those, especially since most of them have such imaginary adventures?
Sorry for not giving you a librarian prompt on these, but I bet it'd e easy to think of a library display ad/or activity with Pooh.
I'd like your response to the Konigsberg as well--maybe a lbrarian one, linked to the art: the Metropolitan Museum has a website.
BB tends to be "obnoxious" between midnight and 4 A.M.--they do backup--but initial posts in this class are always due on Wednesday.