Anderson, Nancy. Elementary Children’s Literature: Infancy through Age 13, 3rd ed. Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 2010. This is the latest version of the book, and provides major resources used for preparing students on how to be good teachers of literature. Students find the book resourceful, but it’s actually the teachers who benefit the most from it as it highlights issues necessary in children literature, and how best to introduce it to elementary education students.
Anderson has a wide experience in children’s literature, and this is shown in the text as the contents are presented in a clear and practical manner that makes it very ‘student friendly’. It gives several ideas to be used in lessons in a straightforward way, which is understandable to the students.
The chapters in the book highlight the major genres in children’s literature. These include Early childhood Books, Historical fiction, Cultural literature, Traditional literature, Biography and Autobiography, Modern fantasy, Informational books, Multicultural literature, Poetry, and Contemporary fiction that is realistic.
The issues discussed are current and literal issues, and devotes a whole chapter to discuss the writings of the underrated authors. The chapter further provides information on the different cultures, and the issues affecting them. This latest edition dedicates an entire chapter on the art illustrations that are used in children’s books.
It gives examples of the arts, the techniques used, and the visuals used in developing them. It further gives guidelines to be used to identify good literature books. The book also gives ways of using the children’s literature to answer and understand questions and instructions.
A detailed bibliography is provided for each of the genres of children’s books. It gives an equal chance for the readers having interests in various genres to benefit from it. Anderson’s numerous experiences in dealing with children’s literature makes her recommendations very useful for teachers, and also the continuing students. She uses the experience to teach and provide light on concepts in children’s literature, and the various genres.
The author includes various topics relating to current issues to help teach literature better according to the set curriculum. She also does not overlook technology, which is very vital in the modern world and how it applies in children’s literature. The text contains lots of strategies that can be used to teach students. This makes it a very valuable teaching aid for both teachers and parents too who have children with thirteen years of age or less.
The contents of each chapter are summarized at the end of each chapter are clear and educative colored illustrations used to enable better understanding. The author also recommends some books that she finds very educative and has assisted her in her career.
She gives credit to the authors that she finds resourceful in various genres and gives references to their works (Anderson 3). The book is very well organized making it readable and understandable to the target group. The boxes provided on each chapter sheds more light on issues that can create conflicts in the book.
The teaching ideas given are very useable by both teachers and students. They are also practical and the teachers do not require much explaining to the students for them to understand the discussed topics. The books stronghold is its ability to attract the student’s attention and capture it throughout the text.
Works Cited
Anderson, Nancy. Elementary Children’s Literature: Infancy through Age 13, 3rd ed. Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 2010. Print.