The Importance Of Children's Literature

Children’s literature is at root about power – about a power struggle. Adults write, children read, and this means that, like it or not, adults are exercising power, and children are either being manipulated, or resisting manipulation: there is a tension between the reader implied by the writer, and the real readers. Children Literature is not merely one of the roots of Western lit & culture, but a foundation of shared intergenerational national & international culture, a barometer of beliefs & anxieties about children & childhood and a body of lit with its own genres, classic texts & avant-garde experiments. Children 's books are thus inevitably didactic in some way: even the most child-friendly is adopting some implicit attitudes. It is generally assumed that those who write for children will, naturally, be persons of goodwill, wishing to do ‘good’ in some form, for their readers. In the story "Northern Lights, children are being kidnapped by a mysterious group called the Gobblers and taken "to the North" where they are tortured by having their daemons separated from them. This is the Satanic garbage that short story are vomiting upon our children.”

Hunt, Peter. 1994 “Peter Hunt sees that Children Literature is a remarkable area of writing; it is one of the roots of western culture, it is enjoyed passionately by adults as well as children, & it has exercised huge talents over 100s of years.” Children’s books are not innocent or simple; ‘Sure