Children learn to read at approximately the same stage in life as they start to master their physical environment. This article argues that some of the same mapping and schema-building strategies inform each activity, and draws on examples from a broad range of children's books to support the idea that reading fiction and mapping one's local surroundings work in tandem among many young children. Fictional examples include Ramona the Brave, The Moffats, and The House at Pooh Corner. As children grow, and their understanding of their own world increases, their relationship with fiction may become more complex; this proposal is discussed in relation to the works of Carolyn Keene and Enid Blyton.

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This article explores questions that arise when we consider the things that make literacy possible. How do they interact with ordinary household objects and activities, and what intertextual implications arise from such mundane interactions? The concept of dual representation suggests that some objects may have both a physical and a symbolic existence; a book is a thing that sits on a shelf but it is also a representation of an imaginary content. It is commonplace to think of electronic texts as having only a virtual life, but they also reside within an object that has a tangible household existence. Objects are very often managed by hands, and this article explores the role of the hands in directing attention and in connecting the objects of literacy to their surrounding environment. It draws on an extended study of one child's access to analogue literacy material. Comparing that access to the repertoire of contemporary children, it suggests that we may better understand the role of literacy in our lives if we attend to the tangible as well as the abstract associations the objects of literacy evoke and if we think of literacy as a form of material as well as intellectual engagement.

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