Children's literature

"Children's literature cannot be created without a close attachment with the children and they should be given moral education through entertainment."

"Just creation of children's literature is not enough, we will have to be aware of the wrong spellings and sentence structures. Otherwise, the children wouldn't be satisfied."

"Children's literature often bears clear evidence of its political leanings. Robinson Crusoe (written for adults but appropriated by younger readers) was about a white man who taught a black man how to behave as much as possible like a decent Englishman. The Jungle Book stories feature Mowgli, who learns the law of the jungle then dominates all of them."

"Children's literature is not political? What rubbish. If it reflects the society we live in, it is political. For years, the only local books about black children featured them living in a round mud hut in a folktale or wandering around chatting up lions and leopards. Then our authors were gradually allowed by our publishers to dream a little, to speak from the heart."

"Children, parents, teachers and schools must always be involved. It is important that good habits and the pleasure of reading can and must be instilled in us when we are young."

"The very first humans anthropomorphized the trees and the sun. It's just what we do. I don't think children's literature is teaching children to graft human emotions onto animals."

"Entertainment written for children was no less grisly. In 1815 Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm published a compendium of old folktales that had gradually been adapted for children. Commonly known as Grimm’s Fairy Tales, the collection ranks with the Bible and Shakespeare as one of the bestselling and most respected works in the Western canon. Though it isn’t obvious from the bowdlerized versions in Walt Disney films, the tales are filled with murder, infanticide, cannibalism, mutilation, and sexual abuse—grim fairy tales indeed. Take just the three famous stepmother stories: During a famine, the father and stepmother of Hansel and Gretel abandon them in a forest so that they will starve to death. The children stumble upon an edible house inhabited by a witch, who imprisons Hansel and fattens him up in preparation for eating him. Fortunately Gretel shoves the witch into a fiery oven, and “the godless witch burned to death in a horrible way.” Cinderella’s stepsisters, when trying to squeeze into her slippers, take their mother’s advice and cut off a toe or heel to make them fit. Doves notice the blood, and after Cinderella marries the prince, they peck out the stepsisters’ eyes, punishing them “for their wickedness and malice with blindness for the rest of their lives.” Snow White arouses the jealousy of her stepmother, the queen, so the queen orders a hunter to take her into the forest, kill her, and bring back her lungs and liver for the queen to eat. When the queen realizes that Snow White has escaped, she makes three more attempts on her life, two by poison, one by asphyxiation. After the prince has revived her, the queen crashes their wedding, but “iron slippers had already been heated up for her over a fire of coals.... She had to put on the red-hot iron shoes and dance in them until she dropped to the ground dead.” As we shall see, purveyors of entertainment for young children today have become so intolerant of violence that even episodes of the early Muppets have been deemed too dangerous for them."

"I doubt that the imagination can be suppressed. If you truly eradicated it in a child, he would grow up to be an eggplant. Like all our evil propensities, the imagination will out. But if it is rejected and despised, it will grow into wild and weedy shapes; it will be deformed. At its best, it will be mere ego-centered daydreaming; at its worst, it will be wishful thinking, which is a very dangerous occupation when it is taken seriously."

"Children's literature is a key educational source in creating an inclusive culture."

"A 4-year-old reading a book about a talking bear, or in my case a bear that hugs trees, it's an innocent little fantasy. If a child loves picking up that book every night, I think the positive outweighs the negative - if there is any negative. I'd strongly argue there isn't."

"What mostly attracts me to children's literature is how complex it is We often have a misconception that children's literature is literature for adults with simpler language, and happy endings."

"Really, children's literature brings their fears and frustrations to life."

"This is one reason why children's literature is so important: it often begins with laughter."

"One of the most common epithets for children's books is 'fun'. It suggests a certain luxurious triviality: what's fun is all that's not serious. And certainly, many books are just that: escapes from the serious business of living."

"This is one of the triumphs of kids' books in general: a bonding in incomprehensibility."

"But all in all, the fun of children's books is often altruistic: it is a lesson in how to cope with an imperfect and often impenetrable life - and, as we chortle together, a form of intimacy."