Children's literature: trends, themes, and educational applications

Children's Book

Critical Reflection

It is difficult to write a children's book because there are so many different things to think about before it can be accomplished. The style has to be interesting enough to keep the interest of the audience, no matter whether that is adults or children, but if a book does not flow correctly a child will sense it and be bored. Also, there is the matter of what age level the book is for. The selected subject matter has to be appropriate for the age of the targeted audience and it has to be presented in such a way that it does not lose the young reader. A young child will also want interesting illustrations that can hold interest.

The best advice may be to research others who have been successful with a certain age group nor genre and see what they did. Pat Mora, a successful children's book author gives the advice of getting involved with other people who write in the same genre, but also to read books, from successful authors, within the same genre. For young readers, probably the most successful author of all time is Theodore Seuss Geisel. Dr. Seuss told stories that were amazingly simple, but that had an underlying meaning that is not lost on children. Seuss also used illustrations that followed the story. They were, in the main, ludicrous and fanciful, but they have always seemed to speak to children. Many times the characters and gadgets Seuss invented did not hold up to the reality adults live in, but to a childish imagination, the characters were perfect. My story on daydreaming is patterned after the Dr. Seuss model. It is simple, rhyming, it does not use words that are too big for young minds to understand.

The project is one which talks about a common problem that school-age children have and tries to make it seem real to them. First a young boy is getting bored with the teacher and he wishes that he was somewhere else. he looks out the window and sees snow which disappoints him. He wants it to be spring. He has previously been told though that he should attend, and that school is not supposed to be fun. He goes into his desk to extract the math book the class will be studying from and he gets lost in a daydream. He sees his stapler and imagines that it is a gun that shoots purple fish. It also has the amazing power to make large, imposing things small. He is a hero who rides an imaginary flying dinosaur, and he feels the experience. Eventually he is felled by some dinosaur villain he is fighting and, back in reality, falls out of his school chair with a yell. The other children laugh at him, and the teacher sends him to the principal's office. The last page of the book is a moral about not paying attention.

This book actually had two inspirations. The language is as close to Dr. Seuss as is possible, but the character of the boy is somewhat taken from the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip. Calvin was always daydreaming, and he often became Spaceman Spiff while he was supposed to be listening to his teacher. He was also often in the principal's office. These two inspirations made the story, but sticking to a simple style, and simple words, was difficult.

It seems that many children's books and stories for children are of the moral type. The author is trying to teach the children an important lesson, and giving parents an important resource to get a message across. Since children are often dreamy when they should be trying to attend to something important, this seemed to be a moral that could be worthwhile. The value of such a book is in the resource that it gives parents, but also in the pleasure that a child can get from reading it. Parents often find it difficult to relay messages in a way that will be accepted by a young mind. That is why there are many children's books, going back to Aesop and Hans Christian Anderson, which try to teach a lesson with a witty dialog. Children are also learning to read in the first and second grade and they need material that is appropriate and interesting. This sort of book allows a child to follow simple words while enjoying the fun of the story.

Of course, telling a story with a moral is not a new concept, but it is one that seems to be universally accepted as an appropriate way for children to learn (Barancik).

It can be seen in the oldest writing and tales that have been passed down through many cultures. Most of the Grimm-type fairy stories were told because they offered a good story and a lesson for children. Modern authors such as Dr. Seuss took up that same mantra and wrote stories that provided children with both entertainment and a valuable lesson.

Many of these stories took complex issues, such as the creation of the world, and made them simple enough that a child could easily understand what was being said. It does not seem to diminish the importance of the subject matter when it is simplified to include children among the audience. As a matter of fact it may enhance the subject matter because when someone thinks something is complex it is often more straight forward. Adults may think that an issue is complex because it is happening between adults, but it could be as simple as greed, lying, cheating, or any of a number of subjects which a child understands. The telling of a story does not diminish the importance of the subject matter unless the tale teller diminishes it.