Literature for Children

Ms Zerrin Eren, Senior lecturer, OMU, Turkey

Childhood is a period of development

Childhood is not monolithic

There are some stages of development

Books for children should be suitable to the cognitive

and social abilities of children

Researchers have studied various aspects of child development

Three important researchers studying the child development are:

Jean Piaget is interested in intellectual or cognitive development

Erik Erikson is concerned with social development

Lawrence Kohlberg studies the development of moral judgement

Piaget mentions four great stages in the

development of intelligence

1- Sensorimotor Period (Birth to 2 years)

-lullabies and nursery rhymes

2- Preoperational Period (2-7 years)

Books for children are classified according to

age range

Picture books for 0-5 age range

Wordless Picture Books

Picture Story Books (Picture Books)

3- Period of concrete operations (7-12)

They begin to read longer books and chapter books

4- Period of formal operations (12-15)

Books for children are classified according to genres

and subgenres.

1-Beginning Books: Nursery Rhymes, Alphabet and

Counting Books, Wordless Picture Books, Picture

(story) Books, Easy Readers

2- Folk narratives: fairy tales, fables, myths,

traditional epics

3- Poetry

4- Fiction

a- Fantasy

b- Realistic Fiction

i. Family Life

ii. Friends

iii. Outsiders

iv. Animals

v. Death

c- Historical Novels

5- Non-fiction

A Short History of Children’s Literature

John Locke

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

John Newbery – A Pretty Little Pocket Book (1774)

Early 19th century German brothers - Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm –

Children’s and Household Tales (1812)

Danish writer, Hans Christian Andersen – Fairy Tales

(1835).

English writer, Lewis Carroll Alice’s Adventures in

Wonderland (1865)

Different types of novels and stories were

published for children in 19th century -Adventure Stories: The Coral Island by R. M. Ballantyn, The

Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

Historical Novels: Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson

Domestic and family stories: Little Women by Louisa May

Alcott

School Stories: Tom Brown’s School Days by Thomas Hughes

Fantasies: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, The

Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald

Poems: A Child’s Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson

20th and 21st centuries

There are many awards such as the Newbery Medal in

US, the Carnegie Medal in England to encourage the

writers.

In England, a position award called Children’s

Laureate is given prominent writers or illustrators of

books for children