Beginnings of Children’s Literature • What is Children’s Literature? • What is Young Adult Literature? • Yesterday and Today in the World of Children’s Books • What are the values of Children’s Literature? • Review the criteria of literary evaluation • Importance of developmental characteristics What is Children’s Literature? • stories that children enjoy and typically they have a child or childlike character (often an animal) at their heart • the imaginative shaping of life and thought into the forms and structures of language • Consists of books that are not only read and enjoyed, but also that have been written for children and that meet high literary and artistic standards (Sutherland & Arbuthnot: 1991) What is Children’s Literature? • According to Michael Rosen, “I think of children’s books as not so much for children, but as the filling that goes between the child world and the adult world. One way or another, all children’s books have to negotiate that space.” What is particular and universal of children’s books? • It shows the way in which children’s books are eternal and how they emerge from the society in which they are conceived. – (some stories) can cross cultures and time periods and be easily understood by all What is particular and universal of children’s books? • They reflect the actual world that children inhabit but also: – act as vehicles to show how different childhood might be – carry the twin ambitions of providing entertainment while offering educational or cultural improvement What is Young Adult Literature? • anything that readers between the approximate ages of twelve and eighteen choose to read either for leisure reading or to fill school assignments (Young adults, according to the Educational Resources Information Clearinghouse (ERIC), are those between the ages of 18 and 22, whereas the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), refers to young adults, ages 21 through 25.) Yesterday and Today in the World of Children’s Books A) Early Books – began in the church and were written so that young people could be made aware of their relationship with the Almighty – were moralistic and didactic visual representations of what children heard from their religion teachers Yesterday and Today in the World of Children’s Books A) Early Books • Monk John Amos Comenius made the very first illustrated book for children. He called it Orbis Pictus. – In Puritan England and America, the God the teachers introduced in books was fearsome and even vengeful. • First books were prayer books and simplified bibles. (The New England Primer was the first textbook used in the schools of the colonies in America.) Yesterday and Today in the World of Children’s Books A) Early Books • children used hornbooks in addition to religiously oriented textbooks – these were paddle-like pieces of wood on which was glued a page from the primer or whatever textbook they were using Hornbook Yesterday and Today in the World of Children’s Books A) Early Books • chapbooks, a corruption of “cheapbooks” and were the forerunner of today’s comic books, were reading materials that children secured on their own to while away their time and in rebellion against their strict mentors – Cheap/crude illustrated versions of popular tales and other narratives printed and sold for only a few cents/shillings. The more forbidden the chapbooks were, the better. Sample Chapbooks Yesterday and Today in the World of Children’s Books A) Early Books • Pilgrim’s Progress, written by the Puritan John Bunyan, was religious in content but entertaining to children due to its excellent pacing and action-filled pages. Yesterday and Today in the World of Children’s Books B) The Great Shift At the threshold of the Age of Enlightenment in Europe, children began to be regarded not as small versions of adults nor as second class citizens, but as human beings worthy of respect and the most thoughtful consideration. - John Newbery commissioned the leading writers in his pool of talents to write books especially for children. The History of Little Goody Two-Shoes and A Little Pretty Pocket-Book were two initial outputs published in the mid-18th century. Yesterday and Today in the World of Children’s Books B) The Great Shift – Newbery’s assistants invented the battledores in the classroom. • descendants of the hornbook and were also used to stiffen individual pages of a book but were made of thick cardboards instead of wood and had three panels instead of two • most distinctive feature was its content battledores did not contain religious lessons; they had only the most entertaining stories for the young. Yesterday and Today in the World of Children’s Books B) The Great Shift • Newbery effected “the great shift” in the concept of children as readers. – Since 1922, the American Library Association (ALA) has given the Newbery medal to the writer of the year’s best story for children, the most prestigious of awards given to writers for children. Yesterday and Today in the World of Children’s Books B) The Great Shift • In the early decades of the 19th century, Randolph Caldecott, Kate Greenway, and Walter Crane colorfully illustrated children’s books that were very popular among the children of fighting soldiers (when Napoleon was in a conquering rampage across Europe) – Randolph Caldecott’s works have the distinct capacity to appeal not only to one’s sense of sight but to other senses as well. – the ALA awards the Caldecott Medal to the year’s best illustrator of children’s books Yesterday and Today in the World of Children’s Books C) The Grimm Brothers and Other Contributors from Continental Europe • Wilhelm and Jakob, the Grimm Brothers, following the examples of Charles Perrault, scoured the Black Forest for treasures from the very mouth of the primary sources living in its fringes – used the language of the “unkempt” and had greater respect and authenticity of the narrative artifacts, a greater respect for their source – the memory of the ordinary German peasants Yesterday and Today in the World of Children’s Books C) The Grimm Brothers and Other Contributors from Continental Europe • Hans Christian Andersen specialized in the telling of literary fairy tales that had not only the natural charms of such tales but also his own distinctive brand of bittersweet magic – Example: The Little Mermaid, The Little Match Girl, The Steadfast Tin Soldier • Victorian Period – during the latter half of the 19th century was deemed the golden age of England’s social and literary history Yesterday and Today in the World of Children’s Books D) Books that Cross the Line Some books stand out because they have done what had seemed possible to do: cross the line from the world of adults to that of children. The same is true in reverse. Some books for children are enjoyed immensely by adults Examples: Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver’s Travels, Pilgrim’s Progress, Alice in Wonderland, Harry Potter, and the works of CS Lewis (Chronicles of Narnia) and JRR Tolkien (Lord of the Rings), Yesterday and Today in the World of Children’s Books E) Illustrations and Illustrators • illustrations spell the success or failure of a book for children - - • enable the writer to convey meaning more effectively amplify the meaning and appeal of a selection different medium used by illustrators: - oil, watercolor, gouache, collage of varied materials, pen, shredded paper, pencil, woodcuts, textile example: Eric Carle (The very hungry caterpillar) Yesterday and Today in the World of Children’s Books E) Illustrations and Illustrators Different styles of illustrations: • realism (The Biggest Bear by Lynd Ward) • impressionism (The Little Mermaid and The red Shoes by Chihiro Iwasaki) • primitivism (Adarna’s book, Ang Mabait na Kalabaw) • folk art (Albert Gamos and Ibarra Crisostomo are among the best users and interpreters of folk art in Philippine children’s books)