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Recommended: Function of children's literature

What are the obstacles to defining children’s literature?
According to Marah Gubar, “if you were to define children’s literature as literature read by children or young adults, any text could potentially count as children’s literature, including Dickens novels and pornography.” This could be a dangerous because most parents do not want their children to read pornography. Not all books labeled “children’s literature” were specifically written for children, they were labeled that way by publisher, editors or even the public. Who picks out what their child reads? Parents or guardians do, so books meant for children have to appeal to adults too. Therefore you really cannot define “children’s literature” as something a child reads because a lot of time an adult picks out a book they like and they read it, either to their children, classroom, or even children in their day care. What I pick to read to a first grader would not necessarily be what I would read to a kindergartener. So I think we should not really define children’s literature per say but just use our own judgment on what we deem appropriate for children of different ages.
Is content alone the only thing which separates children’s literature from adult literature?
No, content should not even be considered. There are books that I read that I would let children read. They are published as adult books but I find nothing offensive or politically incorrect in them. However some critics would use not just content, they use the text as in how it is written, not on what. Critics think that using some harsher language should not be used in what they define as children literature. The most recent set of books that have been criticized as not being children books were the Hunger Game s...

... middle of paper ...

...hildren’s literature. The only thing I would leave out of this category is pornography. When I say pornography I mean books that have explicit words and very explicit pictures in them, not the educational books that are used in health class that show the human body. I do not feel it is appropriate literature for their age. I do not think that they have complete understanding of the purpose of these books, which are not for their young minds.
Work cited
Gubar, Marah. “Not defining Children’s Literature.” Modern Language Association of America. 2011. Web. http://www.academia.edu/1044204/On_Not_Defining_Childrens_Literature

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