Children’s literature is a unique genre of literature that is specifically written with the needs and interests of children in mind. As a result, they are also marketed primarily to children and are selected by, read to and considered appropriate for children. As might be realized, the category of ‘children’ cannot possibly be considered as a single entity but must be broken up as a result of different abilities, both reading ability and external abilities as the children grow.
Most publishers break up their children’s book segments by major age groups. These are typically considered in the three major blocks of 2-5 years old, 6-8 years old and 9-12 years old. Outside of these relatively formal definitions of children’s literature, there are several characteristics that one can look for as a means of identifying children’s literature. Children’s literature may include any of a number of characteristics but it is not necessarily limited to these characteristics nor is it necessary that a story involve all of these characteristics.
Some similar traits among children’s stories include the probability that they are shorter than the typical adult book, they are often written in simple, broad language and they may include any number of illustrations to help tell the story. In addition, children’s stories usually involve a child protagonist pitted against some adult antagonist but are generally kept to relatively harmless themes reducing attention given to themes such as death, sex, war or violence in favor of themes that deal with growing up or the child’s journey into adulthood.
These stories are usually very plot-oriented, full of a lot of dialogue and action as opposed to offering description or insightful reflection. The primary purpose of children’s literature emerges as being to teach the child something about the adult world and can therefore sometimes be a bit didactic, but they typically provide a happy ending. These characteristics can be traced through all three major age groups recognized by publishers as can be seen by looking at three representative examples: A Promise is a Promise by Robert Munsch, Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White and Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.
Robert Munsch’s book A Promise is a Promise is a children’s book intended to appeal to young children at the younger end of the 6-8 year old age group or even younger. It is the story of a young Inuit girl who breaks a promise to her mother and goes fishing on the sea ice. She becomes a victim of the Qallupilluit, ice monsters who live under the ice and drag children who are not with their parents down under the ice.
In order to save herself, Allashua promises the Qallupilluit that she will bring her brothers and sisters down to the ice if they will let her go. The monsters agree by reminding her that a promise is a promise, using the same words she had used when she told her mother she would stay off the sea ice. In order to save their children, the parents first attempt to reason with the monsters and then, when that doesn’t work, they trick them into a lively dance at the house while the children fulfill their promise and present themselves on the ice. Since the Qallupilluit are not there, they are not collected and are thus free to return to the shore.
There are a number of ways in which this story falls squarely within the category of children’s literature. It is a very short book obviously intended for a very young audience. The book includes illustrations on every page to help entertain and make understandable the words on the page. The story moves from one event to another in an unbroken stream that is driven almost entirely by dialogue. Most importantly, the story is intended to convey some essential lessons to children.
The most obvious of these is a constant refrain throughout the book, “A promise is a promise.” The importance of this message is reinforced by the parents who obviously don’t want to lose their children but insist that Allashua’s promise must be kept. However, there are many other lessons included in the story. Children should listen to their parents or they will get into trouble. It is not nice to say mean things about other people behind their backs. It is dangerous for children to go out on the ice by themselves without their parents. With these lessons firmly in hand, Allashua and her family are finally brought to a very happy conclusion.
There is a general avoidance of really serious themes although Allashua and her brothers and sisters’ lives are presumably at stake when they are pulled under the ice. The concept of death is never directly mentioned and Allashua is able to go with the Qallupilluit under the ice and return to her parents still alive. Even when they’re dealing with the monsters, the parents distract them from collecting the children by providing them with a pleasant evening of entertainment – giving them bread and candy which they’d never had before and dancing with them, which they’d never done before.
E.B. White’s book Charlotte’s Web is a book about a small pig named Wilbur, a grey spider named Charlotte and the tremendous efforts they take in trying to save the pig from certain destruction at the end of his first year. Wilbur’s life hangs in the balance from the opening of the story. Born the runt of the litter, his survival depends upon the compassion and care of a little girl named Fern who rescues him from her father’s axe and raises him in the house until he grows too big. Wilbur is then moved to Mr. Zuckerman’s farm. Zuckerman has full intentions of butchering Wilbur in the fall with all the other spring pigs.
The grey spider, Charlotte, living well off of the flies and other bugs attracted to his stall, weaves words into her web as a means of bringing attention to Wilbur and presenting a positive assessment of him through such terms as ‘Remarkable pig’ and ‘Outstanding’. To do this, she enlists the help of the other farm animals to provide her with new words. Finally saved, Wilbur looks to celebrate with Charlotte, who is dying after finishing her life’s work, the laying of her egg sack. Again enlisting the help of the other animals, Templeton the rat in particular, Wilbur is finally able to return Charlotte’s gift of life by rescuing Charlotte’s egg sack and caring for it until Charlotte’s children are born.
This book was written with a slightly older audience in mind, aimed primarily at the 6-8 year old audience with perhaps some bleed-through into the 9-12 year old age range. This can be determined from the relatively simple sentence structure and continued use of illustrations that was seen in the younger book, but book length is longer, illustrations are fewer and a greater amount of description is employed in the telling of the story. Although the story starts with a child struggling against the ideas of an adult as a means of capturing the child’s attention, the story relatively quickly turns to focus on the story of the pig she rescues.
One of the major themes in the book is dealing with death, which seems to be more of an adult subject, but the way in which it deals with death is intended to be gentle, presenting it as a natural and accepted part of life. Chapter 6, for example, offers a brief vignette that summarizes the seasons of life that mimics the progression of the book. It begins with the quietly sitting Fern, who “visited the barn almost every day,” to see Wilbur. By including the description of “the sheep lay calmly at her feet”, White suggests the innocence and peace of childhood, in which there are no worries to cloud the mind or responsibilities to disturb her peace. Then, “around the first of July, the work horses were hitched to the mowing machine, and Mr. Zuckerman climbed into the seat and drove into the field.”
If the three months of the summer are considered in terms of a human lifetime, this scene represents adulthood as it is suddenly full of toil and work, but not without its compensations. “Then the hay would be hoisted, sweet and warm, into the big loft, until the whole barn seemed like a wonderful bed of timothy and clover.” Although not included in this specific passage, it is noted that it is at about this time that Fern begins to be distracted by her growing attraction to Henry Fussy representing the natural pairing off of the species. As the passage continues, the song of the birds suggests the short-term period of life, particularly in the song of the sparrow, “sweet, sweet, sweet interlude.” This seems to suggest that before you know it, life will be finished. It also reminds that the lifespan of the pig is about to be cut short as a natural part of the process of a working farm.
As the story continues, telling of the amazing friendship between the pig and the spider Charlotte, the main concerns of the story continues to be finding a means of accepting the facts of life, which includes the fact that life continues even after death, regardless of how tragic that death might seem. Charlotte’s death is sad, but it is something she is ready for and accepts without sorrow. Meanwhile, she is able to be remembered through the birth of her children, three of whom stay to provide Wilbur with new friends, thus providing the necessary happy ending.
In J.K. Rowling’s book Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, the main character is a young man approaching his 11th birthday as he struggles to survive in a very hostile house of relatives who seem to hate him just as a matter of course. However, he is saved from their abuse by the sudden arrival of an invitation for him to go and attend a previously unsuspected boarding school of magic and wizardry called Hogwarts. His entrance into this world is not smooth as he must cope with meeting all new friends and enemies and discovers that, although he is nobody in his own world, he is famous in this one for having stopped the terrible progress of a very powerful and very evil wizard that is still out to destroy him.
As he learns more about his power and his position, Harry is brought face to face with his mortal enemy and must put a stop to Voldemort’s activities even if it means being expelled from the school. He does so by keeping his head, fully using his talents, listening to his mentor and relying on his true friends to help him.
Written with the older child in mind, J.K. Rowling’s novel is presented as a true chapter book nearly devoid of images of any kind. It is designed to appeal to the 9-12 year old market, but a number of young teenagers and even adults have become attracted to the magic of the story. Although self-contained as a full story in itself, the novel opens up an entire series that has delighted children into the present largely because it doesn’t seem to be treating them like children. Its length and the important themes it deals with place it somewhere in between the children’s book and adult reading, giving it the ability to grow with the child as they become more able to understand its deeper meanings.
However, the book remains firmly within the classification of children’s literature because of its focus on the child’s growth into adulthood. Throughout the novel, the hero journey is presented in almost textbook fashion. Harry must first receive a shock that introduces him to the world of wizardry and prepares him to accept that it is a world in which he might belong. This occurs as Hagrid attempts to convince Harry that he is a wizard by asking if he couldn’t remember a time when things seemed to get weird. “Now he came to think about it … every odd thing that had ever made his aunt and uncle furious with him had happened when he, Harry, had been upset or angry … dreading going to school with that ridiculous haircut, he’d managed to make it grow back” (Rowling 1997: 58).
His initiation process occurs as he learns more about wizardry and must begin to solve his own way through this world, shaping and defining himself internally by choosing carefully among options that will help to shape and define him externally.
He is gently and subtly guided through this process by a Wise Man, another essential element of the hero journey, in the form of Professor Dumbledore. Finally, Harry faces his final and most difficult test as he faces, alone, his greatest desire and his most deadly enemy at once and nearly dies in the process, thus completing the final phase of the hero journey. Through this experience, Harry is able to gain a deeper understanding of the nature of the universe as he discovers the power of love, friendship and lack of greed while still ending up on a happier note. He returns to his family for the summer with some dread, but he now has friends to think about him and the new power of implied threat to keep his bullying cousin in line.
All three of these books are written with a different age group in mind but all three contain the same basic elements of a children’s book. They point out some of the important lessons in life and attempt to teach these to their audience through example –negative as in A Promise is a Promise when the young girl learns her lesson after doing something wrong, neutral as in Charlotte’s Web where the lesson learned is simply a matter of living long enough or positive as in Harry Potter where the boy learns as a result of his success in correctly choosing the right path on his own by listening to guidance from his mentors.
All three books share the common characteristics of children’s literature but utilize these characteristics to greater or lesser extent depending upon the audience they’re targeted for. Through this analysis, a gentle progression can be seen as the child is taken from the beginning stages of reading through to the more complex sharing of ideas found in adult books without actually sacrificing the common attributes of children’s reading material.
Works Cited
Munsch, Robert N. A Promise is a Promise. Buffalo, New York: Annick Press, 2000.
Rowling, J.K. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. New York: Scholastic, 1997.
White, E.B. Charlotte’s Web. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1952.