Children’s and young adult literature is part of education resources. This type of literature comprises of written works mostly accompanied by illustrations meant to entertain or to instruct young people. Although the type of literature encompasses written works written for this particular audience (children and young adults), Galda, Liang, and Cullinan (2017) argues that this collection includes books that children and young adults enjoy even if they were not primarily written for them. For instance, young adults can associate with fiction works meant for adults. This paper will discuss three genres of children’s and young adult literature namely, contemporary realistic fiction, picture books, and historical fiction. The discussion will …show more content…
Contemporary Realistic Fiction As defined earlier, the events in contemporary realistic fiction can actually happen. Being a fiction, the events in the story are the product of imagination of the author. However, the author focuses on contemporary issues. Popular themes in contemporary realistic fiction include family life, personal life, sexuality, growing up, survival, and death among others. Fictionalized characters who deal with familiar everyday problems, pleasures, and relationships enhance these themes. This realistic plot is what makes the genre contemporary. Through contemporary realistic fiction, young readers learn about life problems and how to solve them, learn from the experiences of the characters and compare them to their own. Realistic fiction authors have provided young people with a vast amount of writings that have helped them understand the world and life …show more content…
In picture books, both the text and the illustrations (drawings, pictures or art) tell the story. Most children’s literature are picture books, and are mostly fictional. Picture books can be of different types such as , wordless picture books, realistic picture books, nonfiction picture books, easy readers picture books, concept picture books and others. Picture books are different from illustrated books. In picture books, the illustrations are part of the story while in illustrated books, the story can be understood without the
“Fiction is the truth inside the lie” (Stephen King). Figment of imagination helps improve brain connectivity and responsibilities which enables the brain to escape to a world of illusion. In a world of imagination students explore conflicts within the book. Anecdotes play a significant role in building the strategies used to deal with real world events. Ink and Ashes by Valynne E. Maetani, discusses how mistakes from the past has an impact on your life and may alter your future. Books intended to be read so that we as people can have a different mindset and perspective on things rather than just our own.
In a country like the United States of America, with a history of every individual having an equal opportunity to reach their dreams, it becomes harder and harder to grasp the reality that equal opportunity is diminishing as the years go on. The book Our Kids by Robert Putnam illustrates this reality and compares life during the 1950’s and today’s society and how it has gradually gotten to a point of inequality. In particular, he goes into two touching stories, one that shows the changes in the communities we live in and another that illustrates the change of family structure. In the end he shows how both stories contribute to the American dream slipping away from our hands.
Picture books are one of the first mediums of learning that children encounter. The picture book was first created in 1657 by John Amos Comenius. Comenius’s book was entitled Orbis Pictus (The world of Pictures) and was an alphabet book (Martinez 57). Picture books are used to lay the foundations of the histori...
I chose to read and comment on Barbara Kiefer’s “Envisioning Experience: The Potential of Picture Books.” Kiefer’s main point in writing this essay was to get the message across that children enjoy picture books that allow them to identify and make connections with the characters or the plots, and that while reading and analyzing the pictures, they gain a better sense of aesthetics and how to interpret them.
Senick, Gerard J., and Hedblad, Alan. Children’s Literature Review: Excerpts from Reviews, and Commentary on Books for Children and Young People (Volumes 14, 34, 35). Detroit, Michigan: Gale Research, 1995..
Falconer, Rachel. The Crossover Novel: Contemporary Children’s Fiction and Its Adult Readership. New York: Routledge, 2009.
It has always been amazing to realize how well the literature I read as a child has stayed with me through the years. It takes an exceptional writer to compose a narrative that maintains a storyline on the same level of a child's understanding; it takes everything short of a miracle to keep a child's interest. However, that undertaking has been accomplished by many skilled authors, and continues to be an area of growth in the literary world. Only this year the New York Times has given the genre of children's literature the credit it deserves by creating a separate best-sellers list just for outstanding children's books. Yet, on another level, children's literature is not only for the young. I believe that the mark of a brilliant children's author is the age range of those who get pleasure from the stories; the wider the range, the better.
Children literature is a term that refers to the texts written for children. The artist uses creative ways to ensure that children are provided with educational books, touching on a variety of themes. This paper will include comparison of two characters from the two texts, “Hana's Suitcase: A True Story,” authored by Karen Levine and “Charlotte’s Web,” written by E.B. White, with the aim of understanding ways in which problems are solvable as indicated by selected characters.
Ward, Martha E. and Marquardt, Dorothy A. Authors of Books for Young People. 2nd ed.' (supplement). Metuchen & London: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1979.
Picture books are books in which both words and illustrations are essential to the story’s meaning (Brown, Tomlinson,1996, Pg.50). There are so many different kinds of children’s books. There are books for every age and every reading level. There are many elements that go into picture books such as line and spacing, color and light, space and perspective, texture, composition and artistic media. Picture books are an essential learning element in today’s classroom.
For children’s literature the Golden Age was a time of reform and new beginnings. The Golden Age opened the doors for an interesting read where adults are not present. The literature that was intended for children during this period introduced a world of literature in which children were the protagonist. These stories not only take children on remarkable journeys though time but they also address many issues of social class in regards to children. The Golden Age reflects greatly the Victorian era where children were left to become orphans because their parents could not support them financially or because their parents just did not want them. The Golden age welcomed children into a society that they were once neglected by. It was not until religion rebuked the evil out of children that they became acceptable by society and as a result were allowed to be portrayed in books.
Jones, Marnie. "The Threat to Imagination in Children's Literature." International Journal of the Book 3.2 (2005/2006): 71-76. Print.
Peter hunt’s ‘Instruction and Delight’ provides a starting point for the study of children’s literature, challenging assumptions made about writing for children and they are trivial, fast and easy. Children’s literature is a conservative and reading it just to escape from the harsh realities of adulthood. It’s probably the most exciting for all literary studies, and a wide range of texts, from novels and stories to picture books , and from oral forms to multimedia and the internet , so it presents a major challenge and can be considered for many reasons. It is important because it is integrated into the cultural, educational and social thinking for the success of the publishing and media, and it is important to our personal development. Things that may seem simple at fist, how children understand the texts, how these differ from the
Literature has been part of society since pen met paper. It has recorded history, retold fables, and entertained adults for centuries. Literature intended for children, however, is a recent development. Though children’s literature is young, the texts can be separated into two categories by age. The exact splitting point is debatable, but as technology revolutionized in the mid-twentieth century is the dividing point between classic and contemporary. Today’s children’s literature is extraordinarily different from the classics that it evolved from, but yet as classic was transformed into modern, the literature kept many common features.
Writers like Mark Twain wrote about what really mattered to the majority of the population. His stories were not considered fairy tales, but narratives. Realism was an important change in literature, because it allowed the average Joe story to be alright. Instead of paying or reading a story about something you will never have, a person will read about the everyday problems. People saw that humans had more in common than they taught. Mark Twain’s narrative, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn expose the literary movement that is known today as Realism. Mark Twain also criticizes the “ills” of the American society, which he hopes he could be able to correct by raising awareness to the problem.