Children Literature

What is it?
1. Read by children (Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe)
2. The authors are known to have written stories
for children (Twain’s Huckleberry Finn)
3. Picture books and easy-to-read stories
4. First quality children’s version of adult classics
(Robin Hood)
5. Folktales, fairy tales, fables, sayings, riddles,
folksongs, lullabies, hymns, nursery rhymes.
 Why?
 A bedtime story to help a child to wind down
 Key for brain development (learn abstract
thought)
 Help children to imagine objects
 Connects adults and children to magical places

“There are many little ways to enlarge your child’s

world. Love books is the best of all.”
-Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
 Brief history
 Emerging from oral tradition (Irish folks
400BCE; India folks 200AD; Aesop’s Fables
400 AD; Imperial China 960-1279 AD)
 Literature was written to entertain children
(Europe 1400s)
 1600s: children were seen as separate entities
with their own needs and limitations
 1744: John Newbery published A Little Pretty
Pocket-Book for children’s pleasure reading.
 1920s children’s picture books widely spread
(Curious George 1941)
 Authors and their works
1. Roald Dahl (Charlie and the Chocolate
Factory, Matilda, The Witches)
2. Dr. Seuss (The Cat in the Hat)
3. J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter Series)
4. A.A. Milne (Winnie the Pooh series)
5. E.B. White (Stuart Little)
6. C.S. Lewis (The Chronicle of Narnia)
7. Lewis Carroll (Alice in Wonderland)
8. Frances Hodgson Burnett (The Secret
Garden)
9. H.A. Rey (Curious George series)
10. Katherine Paterson (Bridge to Terabithia)
11. Charles Perrault (Cinderella)
12. The Brothers Grimm (Snow White and the
Seven Dwarf)
 The features
• Children is its subject matter
• Include the whole contents of child’s
imaginative world and daily environment.
 The readability
 Usually offers a fantastic reality, an
imaginative escape, a playful playground
 Usually about a child (or an animal)
 Usually a simple conflict (definite and clear
solution)
 Compelling illustration
 Filled with all the elements of story
 Elements
Theme: acceptance, devotion, loyalty,
engaging the enemy
 Plot : simple pattern, offer a dilemma
(moral or ethical), and provide closure
Conflict: home vs away; communal concern
vs. self concern; good vs evil.
 characters: little child, animal, inanimate
objects (personal courage, caring for others,
perseverance, optimism)