Children's Literature

The subject of children's literature has been an eye opening topic. I have a strong desire to be an author and as such read a lot. I have never read children's literature, however, because I considered it a poor genre with little to offer to the "more scholarly" pursuits of "real fiction." I have been very wrong.

There is a beauty in children's literature that you cannot find other places. In "real fiction" even though it is nature not true, there is still a need for it to be this believable world of fact and reason. Children's literature can take that need to ask for suspension of disbelief and throw it out the window. Children are not upset when everything doesn't line up just right. When someone can suddenly fly, when dead relatives are in a castle, when giants are commonplace, these are all normal to children. They accept them as they are.

Children know how to see the story and enjoy it for what it is. They don't overanalyze. They enjoy. A child knows how to read a story or watch a film and just enjoy it. They may not be able to write a five page paper on the allegory of the story, but they understand it. They feel it in their souls.

Only children's literature can do this. It is beautiful in its simplicity. "Real fiction" is beautiful in its complication and large words and detailed scenes, but it is a different kind of beauty. The beauty of children's literature is a land that grows toffee trees when toffee is placed in the ground. Barely a sentence is used and yet you have one of the most vivid images. This is what gives children's literature a brilliance that is unique to it alone.