Children Literature and Its Significance - Essay Example

?Children’s literature and its significance Contents Introduction 3 The importance of Children’s Literature 4 Role of Fantasies and Imaginations 4 Conclusion 8 References 10 Introduction The term Children’s literature seem easy and simple externally that differentiates it from the adult literature but a deeper study of facts would reveal that there is a subtle difference between adult literature and children’s literature. One of the major difficulties faced by experts while describing “children’s literature” is that children’s and adult literature always slither into each other. In spite of the issues faced in explaining the concept of “children’s literature,” two frequent themes can be recognized while referring to the history of children’s literature which is presented as follows: Children’s literature is a steady clash of instruction and pleasure. Children’s literature is a place of multiplicity that assimilates and absorbs anything it likes. The inception of the children’s literature phase in the 18th century had been analyzed by Matthew Grenby’s paper titled, ‘Children’s Literature: Birth, Infancy, Maturity’ which subsequently paved the way for great bang towards Britain’s children’s literature in the 2nd half of the 19th century and hence offers a revised perspective on the established histories. The 20th and 21st centuries have experienced an immense increment in the multiplicity in children’s books, ranging from books containing image and flap books to multimedia texts available online. During the early 1900s, the process of upbringing of the children (mostly in the middle class society) became more and more confined; as a result, unambiguous repulsiveness that can be found in, for instance, Book of Martyrs, by Foxes’ was exceptional. As an alternative, terror was swapped into fancy, as could be traced in Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea or Lucy Boston’s The Children of the Green Knowe (Hunt, 2009, pp.14-26). The importance of Children’s Literature Children’s literature is a dominant factor in the lives of kids as it has got the capability to encourage the power of imagination within them. Kids often take pleasure in reading and listening to their much loved fantasy tales over and over again. The attitude of getting habituated to stories and reading those proves to be helpful for the development of the kid’s vocabulary, language skills and communication techniques. It also reverberates with a deeper thinking mechanism within the children which creates a distinctive viewpoint of perceiving the world. According to Jerry Griswold wide “distribution of consciousness” is a recognizable attribute of the kid’s thought process that is uniformly noticeable in the literature which can go beyond the practical situations of life (Griswold, 2006). Children’s literature is different from the literature meant for the adult mainly in terms of the occurrence of sensations and feelings experienced during the early days of childhood. Pessimism and desolation are not the kind of emotions that are significantly featured in the fantasy stories meant for the children. Role of Fantasies and Imaginations Myths and Fairy tales are particularly precious literature pieces for children because such unreal creatures and lands help them to travel to those places through the means of their imagination. The imagination and the thinking capacity increase the amount of creativity within a kid. Today children have fewer scopes to expand their capacity to imagine since the abundance of electronic media brings their imagination right in front of their eyes through various cartoon and comic characters. Also the early interference of the internet, the social media and Smartphone, is making the lives of children much more technology oriented which proves to be a hindrance for the paths of innovation, creativity, imagination and artistic talents. A study by the Kaiser Family Foundation reveals that kids spend almost 8 and a half hours of a day towards the consumption of the media content and reportedly these kids are often occupied by more than a single sort of media at one time. The study shows that around 73% of the kids within the age range 8 to 18 carry on reading for the purpose of pleasure but the time they dedicate towards reading is only around 3 quarters of one hour a day. Thus its evident that these kids are exposed significantly to the wide range of media content and those contents include war sights, air strikes, terrors, destructions, violence and murders. Such practicalities of life when shown to the kids at a tender age, the kids automatically turn mature psychologically and hence the step by step growing up process with a combination of creativity and imagination gets obstructed remarkably. Children’s literature is certainly a crucial part of the student life since it offers them the scope to react to the writing and build up their own judgment about the matter. This reinforces the cognitive developmental process within the child. The literature encourages a group of mental activities that consists of enhancing memory and attention, improving the decision making skills, understanding the language following the processes of learning, producing, reasoning, and problem solving. Superior form of literature does not inform the reader about the whole lot he or she desires to know rather it permits difference of opinion to certain extent and also leaves some space for using imagination to fill up the untold part. One child might derive a totally diverse meaning of a portion of the literature and the reader sitting next to him or her might visualize the situation mentioned in the text from a completely different perspective. This difference arises from the separate personal standpoint and know-how. Children can learn to assess and investigate literature, as well as recapitulate and make assumptions about the subject of the literature. Also picture books prove to be helpful in building up the sense of feeling, identifying and expressing within a child. In this regard Norton stated that “wordless picture books are excellent stimuli for oral and written language” (Crippen, 2012). Children interpreting wordless books namely The Yellow Umbrella, the Red Book, and A Ball for Daisy, will be capable of analyzing the images and form their own conversation for the story. These factors of a literature makes the kid’s cognitive faculties much stronger so that they can guide him/her and make them proficient enough to form their own outlook and to articulate themselves through the various forms of communication by summarizing the main theme of the book. Introduction to children’s literature offers the kid with the chance to acquire knowledge about the lifestyle of people that are diverse from the regular lives of the people around them. In this context we can draw the example of the Harry Potter series written by J.K. Rowling. The series starts with the story Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s stone. The story revolves around a mystery world of wizardry which is totally different than the world of “Muggles” (the non-wizard common men). The plot discusses how Harry, the protagonist of the story finds out that he is a wizard and how he makes some really good friends and also a number of enemies during the days at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The situation further describes how Harry with the cooperation of his friends spoils an endeavor of returning back by the malevolence wizard Lord Voldemort. The story even states a scenario of revenge on Lord Voldemort who had assassinated the parents of Harry, when he was just a year old. Rowling successfully captures the attention of kids by portraying how Harry used to get abused by his non-wizard aunt and uncle- Petunia Dursley and Vernon. The author captivated his readers by describing the unusual world of wizardry in a subtle way that helped the children to imagine the circumstances one by one. The broom flying match combined a feeling of excitement and as well as fear as the practice of broom flying is generally linked with witches. Rowling’s innovative works made the kids and as well as the teenagers imagines and fantasize an entirely different world. The main attraction of the plot is that as the objects and situations had no similarity with practical day to day life therefore the readers got a scope to apply their thoughts and think of a completely new place where the pictures on the wall moves and the dinner is served automatically (Rowling, 1998). Providing the kids with the chance to go through stories and books helps them to understand that people across the globe share their dreams, fears and hopes. Through these kinds of stories, they gain knowledge about various domains of life like sadness, pleasure, warm family relationships, fears, loneliness, and death. Yoshiko Uchida’s The Bracelet and Elvira Woodruff’s Small Beauties showcases a heart melting tale where a kid has been compelled to abscond from his home for an unknown location. In the story it has been illustrated that in every circumstances the child gets the family support but had never dealt with extreme uncertainty and loss. The central character in each story has successfully coped up with the adverse situations and eventually finds out a way towards victory along with preserving prized memories. The instances discussed here provide the readers with the occasion of gaining dimensions into new modes of analyzing and resolving the issues faced by the protagonist of the story. Literature can moreover play an imperative role in the expansion of reasoning abilities within kids by motivating them to synthesize, analyze, respond and connect thoughtfully. Through the means of literature that provides varied perspectives on well-known topics, kids get the scope to experiment with different roles and responsibilities, visualize new surroundings, and work out problems. Also stories relating to different cultures and backgrounds make the child aware of his/her surroundings. As claimed by Levin, “Multicultural literature can be a very powerful tool for helping children to better understand the world in which all of us live. Such literature has the potential to foster ethical respect for others and show children the commonality inherent in all people. Appropriate multicultural literature offers a lens through which we all can see ourselves as part of something larger, an ideal that promotes a sense of self and of community” (Causarano, 2012, p.5). An additional positive result of experiencing a multicultural literature is that it provides with the opportunity for more kids to visualize themselves in the literature they read. Research states that when children are allowed to select the works of their own choice, they generally tend to feel more motivated and dedicated towards reading that which is not the case when they are forced to read a story. Researchers also revealed that young readers are more inclined towards fantasy and folk tales. However it has also been noticed that at the verge of adolescence these preferences tend to vary depending on the gender of the reader. Children get much influenced by their friends and family members while choosing a literature for them (Mohr, 2006, pp.81-83). Conclusion Children’s literature further has an essential role to play in nurturing happy thoughts, a logic of well-being and a sense of maintaining healthy habits within kids. Children often consider the protagonist of the story as their idols and follow their path. Therefore a good piece of children’s literature can prove to be encouraging and can influence children’s lives to a great extent. The story of “Little Red Riding Hood” (Zipes , 2002)can be used as an example in this case which teaches children not to trust anybody easily and to become aware of the probable dangers. The same message can be found in the story of "Snow White" where the cruel queen offers snow white a poisoned apple. All these instances make the readers thrilled as well as aware about the conspiracies that take place in life. Literature attracts kids into the kingdom of the essence of the plot by inviting them to envisage that they are a different person, much different than the way the world knows them. The scope to step into a new role may be what some kids require badly in order to perceive new potential for their own existence. Thus it can be concluded that by the means of rich literature insights, children can get a scope to explore new paths of life and can turn into a creative and aware human being who will form a happier and healthier part of the future of the society we live in. References Hunt, P. 2009. ‘Instruction and Delight’ in Maybin, J. and Watson, N. J. (eds) Children’s Literature: Approaches and Territories. Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, pp.12-26. Rowling, J. K.1998. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. London, Bloomsbury. Zipes, J. 2002. ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ in Oxford Reference Online Companion to Fairytales in Literature. [online] Available at  [accessed 19/10/2013] Mohr, K.A.J. 2006. “Children’s Choices for Recreational Reading: A Three-Part Investigation of Selection Preferences, Rationales, and Processes”. JOURNAL OF LITERACY RESEARCH, 38(1), 81–104. [Pdf] Available at < http://jlr.sagepub.com/content/38/1/81.full.pdf> [accessed 19/10/2013] Causarano, A. 2012. “Multicultural Children’s Literature and Disability: Its Importance and Visibility in the Diversity Landscape in the United States Educational and Sociocultural Context”. The Journal of Multiculturalism in Education. Volume 8. [Pdf] Available at < https://www.wtamu.edu/webres/File/Journals/MCJ/Volume%208%20Number%201/Causarano%20-%20Multicultural%20Children's%20Literature%20and%20Disability.pdf> [accessed 19/10/2013] Crippen, M. 2012.The Value of Children’s Literature. [Online] Available at < http://oneotareadingjournal.com/2012/value-of-childrens-literature/> [accessed 19/10/2013] Griswold, J. 2006. Feeling like a Kid: Childhood and Children's Literature. Baltimore, Maryland:JHU Press. Read More