Children's Literature- 5 Theories

Children's literature in many generations has been meant to teach something. Whether it's the whole plot or bits and parts of a story, a lesson is always learned. As Children's Literature For a New Nation shows,"the authors wished to be entertaining, but only just enough to attract child readers, that they might be instructed in morality." This very theme of morality is in stories whether obvious or not has transcended over time into the present generation's literature. Today, it's not as obvious as "The Boy Who Cried Wolf", but there is always something to be learned from being obedient and good to being selfless and caring for someone.

In real life, sometimes the bad guy doesn't get caught, doesn't die, and may even live a long and happy life. In much of the children's literature that I have read, the bad guy never wins and the story always portrays the well behaved and generous character as the good guy that ends up defeating the one that is causing harm, and then everything turns out great. Children are not always empty vessels that can be made into good little people. As Sanchez-Eppler said, "the idea of the child as transparent is itself a Romantic invention, a very particular understanding of what childhood means and how it functions in the social world." Some children,like the child that likes to torture little animals that has a great family life, have a natural tendency to not be so well behaved. Despite any interaction to make those specific children more obedient, polite, and kind, it doesn't work because not all children have "a sense of immanence and innocence, more immediate than rational."(Sanchez-Eppler) However, children's literature somehow still reaches out to those many well-behaved, nice, and innocent children and makes an impact on a child's way of being as it has in many generations since the 19th century.

There are those times when a person or a child is allowed to break the rules, but only because they end up being the hero of the story or somehow end up helping someone and make a huge impact on one or more people. Also, these exceptions of bad children may not always be heroes but may learn a few lessons themselves and end up in the path of rightousness eventually. In many ways, this theme of the bad child transformed into the well-behaved one is meant to teach the children reading to be afraid of behaving bad or breaking the rules. As it was said in Children's Literature in a New Nation,"though some errant characters proceeded briskly from early mistakes to an untimely end, many more were salvaged, quite often by the good examples." For example, Rip Van Winkle was lazy and didn't really do much to help himself and his family yet he helped others and did well for others, therefore, nothing bad ever really happened to him with the exception of being catapulted twenty years later into the future. In today's literature, Harry Potter is a good example of the child that breaks the rules, yet he turns out as the hero because eventually everything was for the good of the people. There is always going to be a protagonist (the good guy) and the antagonist (the bad guy) in a story and more than often the good guy will be the kind and well behaved person but sometimes the good guy can break the rules or the bad guy can turn into a good guy.

One very important theme that always comes up in children's stories is that of friendship. A child can become friends with adults or children and always learn something. Most of the time, the child looks up to an adult. As Sanchez-Eppler states, "children matter then not as selves, but as stages in the process of making an adult identity." Children "how as vulnerable, innocent, ignorant beings they require adult protection and training" (Sanchez-Eppler), and therefore can benefit much from befriending adults. Children in literature look up to adults, are always trying to be like the adults, and at time even help out the adults. As portrayed in Children's Literature in a New Nation, "good children sometimes even led adults to a better way of life in the fiction, though of course they worked by 'the silent power alone' since it would hardly have been fitting for a child to lecture an adult, no matter how helpfully." Overall, friendship is an important aspect in literature and sometimes very beneficial when an adult is involved and the child learns from that adult and aspires to be like him or her.

Just like in real life, the bad guy sometimes prevails, children's literature tends to make real life issues disappear. There is rarely ever, if even that, a work of children's fiction about the what is going on in politics or how so many people in the world are dying from hunger despite the wealth that can prevent that problem. This has been going on since the 19th century where "except for frequent and pious references to George Washington, the American past was largely ignored." (Children's Literature in a New Nation)Much of children's literature makes the world as universal as possible and there sometimes isn't anything specific about when or where the story takes place. Many authors aim to entertain the child or in 19th century terms it was to teach the child morals, yet "throughout the nineteenth century, while sentimental images of childhood as a time od delight, imagination, and love quickly proliferated, the role of children's labor in the household economy and the reliance on corporal punishment diminished far more slowly." Even today, children are still used for labor in many countries and abused in homes including in the United States.

In conclusion, children's literature is meant to teach morals, to set a good example, and to not be depressing, for the most part, in order to make children see life as hopeful as possible. All in all, children's stories mark the beginning for a child to gain entrance into what they want to be when they grow up. Children are meant to gain lessons and understanding while taking that path to adulthood without any real life issues getting in the way, and with as much encouragement as possible through literature.