am I misunderstanding what a selector does, here?

am I misunderstanding what a selector does, here?

Ok, the following bit of code worked for the effect I was going for:
  1.   $("contents").click(function(evt) {
        $(contents).animate(
          { fontSize: '+=50%' },
          60);
        });




However, I was unhappy with the result of that as I can click anywhere in the horizontal space (although maybe there's a workaround?) whereas I just want it to respond to when I click on the actual text.  So I tried to base it off of any of the li elements being clicked instead:

  1.   $("contents li").click(function(evt) {
        $(contents).animate(
          { fontSize: '+=50%' },
          60);
        });




Which does not work at all.  What is my incorrect assumption on how this all works?

EDIT: Looks like just $("li") works (except it still responds to clicking anywhere in the horizontal space--how can I fix that?).  How do I go about obtaining only the li tags that are children of the element with the id 'contents' ?