The analysis of the chapter 5 of the book Essentials of Young Adult Literature by Carl M. Tomlinson and Carol Lynch-Brown will be presented in this paper. This part of the book is devoted to one of the most influential genres in literature, historical fiction.
Proper structure, clear and rather simple language, and logical definitions of the terms make this chapter really captivating and helpful to people of different ages and positions. This genre of literature covers significant historical figures and events, which had or will have a certain impact on human development and understanding of this world.
Carl Tomlinson and Carol Lynch-Brown made a wonderful attempt to explain the main idea of historical fiction by means of social studies and clear instructions.
Students have to read different literature in order to learn and comprehend the world from different perspectives, and the authors under consideration provide the reader with a chance to get an idea of how to analyze historical fiction in a proper way.
As it was mentioned before, chapter 5, entitled Historical Fiction, is properly organized. This is why it turns out to be quite easy to comprehend what issues are considered to be the main ones in this part of the book.
The authors present clear definitions of historical fiction and other concepts, which may be applied within this term, describe several rather appropriate topics, which may be used in historical fiction, and divide the development of historical fiction into seven meaningful periods.
In this chapter, information helps to realize that only historical fiction makes students learn and analyze the effects of war on people, the impact of past actions on future life, and the ideas of how to achieve success.
As a kindergarten teacher, I realize that each genre of literature plays a significant role in student’s comprehension of the world and own place in this world.
If a student fails to understand properly the essence of chosen literary work and author’s intentions, he/she deprives him/herself of the opportunity to enlarge own level of knowledge and help other people to do the same. The content of the chapter under analysis may be used in the classrooms in different ways.
These ways involve students’ concentration on own actions and their consequences in future, analysis of historical figures’ actions and the use of their ideas nowadays, examination of past mistakes and their impact.
The reading under consideration provides insight into the unbelievable world of literature and history and their cooperation. Literature is one of the most powerful means that can represent history as it is, because many works are written by people, who observed those events and were eager to share their experience with other people.
With the help of class discussion, I realize the importance of historical fiction as a literary genre. Civilizations of the ancient world and the medieval world provided different understanding of the concepts, and historical fiction of those times opens new possibilities and new ideas of how to study on past mistakes and improve our modern life.
This chapter also teaches me how to pick out historical books for students of different age and how to learn the material in a proper and interesting for students way. Dr. Tomlinson and Dr. Lynch-Brown perfectly cover one more genre of literature and present incredibly helpful information for teachers.