Children Literature

Children 's Literature

CHILDREN 'S LITERATURE ' PAGE 1

Literature has been here since time immemorial . Traces of cave paintings can attest to that . Also , there are solid evidences that folk stories poetries and fables have been passed from one generation to another Throughout hundreds of years , the world has been blessed by stories poems and plays that kept its citizens informed , entertained and educated . In this day and age , different forms of literature abound catering to different ages . One form that never fails to entertain children and adults alike is the

children 's literature . In studying children 's literature , it is very necessary to find the answer to these questions : 1 ) what makes something literature and 2 ) what defines a child

Literature is defined as a collection of text , letters and narratives Literally translated to acquaintance with letters , literature is branched out to two main categories which are written and oral . Written literature , of course , is immortalized in letters , s and in our technology savvy world today , electronic forms . On the other hand , oral literature takes form in narrative stories which are kept alive by passing it through generations . But , not all forms of spoken and printed data can be considered literature . Before one can be considered such one should satisfy a number of general prerequisites . First , literature should be equally informative and educational . Something , be it an idea a moral value , or knowledge , should be derived from the literary material . It is imperative that the reader or listener should positively gain from the literature read or listened to . Secondly , the material should be entertaining . It should be appealing and enticing to its specific targeted market . Literature , apart from being used as a medium of information , is primarily designed to amuse and entertain . In addition to these , literature should have art

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it should be aesthetically pleasing . Typical poems or prose poetry perfectly illustrate this aspect of literature . Although not necessarily shown in all literary pieces , the use of flowery and flowing words greatly help in making the literary work pleasing . Lastly , literature should have a timeless appeal , regardless of which era it was made . A fable first told 2000 years ago should still have kept its charm until now . Children of today , for example , should still be fascinated with the characters and stories originally made for the children of the renaissance period

Keeping these general prerequisites in mind , it is safe to say that not all forms of written and oral narratives can be considered literature . A mathematical book , for instance , satisfies the first requirement (although the second requirement may be argued fulfilled because a mathematics book may be deemed entertaining by certain people ) but fails to comply with all the other succeeding requirements

The second question posed is `What defines a child . By its technical definition , a child is someone who has not reached adult age yet Generally , innocence and purity of heart characterize children . Because of their naivety and limited knowledge of the...