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COLLEGE OF TEACHER EDUCATION

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LEARNING MODULE
FOR
LIT 111: CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENT LITERATURE

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WEEK 1
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 COURSE OUTLINE

COURSE CODE : LIT 111

TITLE : Children and adolescent Literature
TARGET POPULATION: All BSED English Major Students
INSTRUCTOR : MR. JUNMARK C. PORAL, LPT

Overview:

This course provides a survey of the categories and types of the world’s literature for children and
adolescents.

Objectives:

• demonstrate understanding on the development of children and adolescent literature in

the twenty first century;
• understand the historical context of literature for children and adolescent; and
• discuss the different genres of children and adolescent literature.

The following are the topics to be discussed

Week 1 THE POWER OF LITERATURE

Week 2 CONSIDERING CHILDREN'S LITERATURE IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
Week 3 GLOBAL AND MULTICULTURAL LITERATURE
Week 4 LITERATURE IN THE LIVES OF YOUNG READERS
Week 5 PICTUREBOOK AS VISUAL ART

Instruction to the Learners

Each chapter in this module contains a major lesson involving the Children and Adolescent
Literature. The units are characterized by continuity, and are arranged in such a manner that the present
unit is related to the next unit. For this reason, you are advised to read this module. After each unit,
there are exercises to be given. Submission of task given will be every Tuesday during your scheduled
class hour.

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 WEEK 1
THE POWER OF LITERATURE

Avid readers read poetry to stir their souls, narrative fiction to help them discover who they are, and
nonfiction to help them understand their worlds. The importance of reading good books is apparent in
both theory (Nodelman, 1996, 1997; Galda, Ash, & Cullinan, 2000; Rosenblatt, 1938/1976; Sipe &
McGuire, 2008) and research (Cunningham & Stanovitch, 1998; Ivey & Johnston, 2013; Kidd &Castano,
2013). The opportunity to discover new experiences and ideas is enticing to readers, leading to the
engagement and motivation that it takes to become a successful, and lifelong, reader (Guthrie &
Wigfield, 2000). Those who engage with books from a young age and become avid readers have an
academic advantage that continues to support their success, regardless of intelligence or circum-
stances. Avid reading really does make you smarter (Cunningham & Stanovitch, 1998, p. 14)

Reading literature contributes to language growth and development. When children and
adolescents read or hear stories read to them, they learn new vocabulary; they encounter a greater
variety of words in books than they will ever hear in spoken conversation or on television. Each reader
builds an individual storehouse of language possibilities and draws on that wealth when speaking,
writing, listening, and reading. Literature also develops readers' facility with language because it
exposes them to carefully crafted poetry and prose. Young people who read literature have a broad
range of experiences and language to put in their storehouse; they have greater resources on which to
draw than do people who do not read. Outstanding literature helps readers become better writers as
well. When students read a lot, they notice what writers do.

DEFINING LITERATURE FOR CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS

A basic definition of literature for children and adolescents might state that it encompasses books
written for this particular audience; we add that it can also include books that children and adolescents
enjoy and have made their own. In short, this literature consists of books that children and adolescents
read. In this textbook we focus on those books written for and marketed to an audience of young readers.
This audience begins at birth and ends at adulthood, which is, for the purposes of this text age
eighteen. This means there are huge differences in audience within the broad parameter of "literature
for young readers." What preschool children need and want to read is both similar to and different
from what primary grade children find interesting. Intermediate, or middle-grade, children are not the
same as young adults in what they enjoy or in what is "appropriate" for them. To make it even more
complicated, children mature at very different speeds and in very different ways, and they all have
individual preferences! That is one reason that the adults in their lives--parents, teachers, librarians,
and booksellers-need to learn about all the literature created for this audience. Although our primary
focus in this text is on literature for young readers from birth through middle school, we do also discuss
some of the trends in and major contributions to literature for older adolescents. We indicate in
parentheses following the title the general age range of the books we discuss in this text using the
following designations:

N = Nursery (birth to age five)

P = Primary (ages five to eight)
I= Intermediate (ages eight to twelve)
A= Advanced (ages twelve to eighteen)

Many books, however, appeal in different ways to a wide range of ages, so there is considerable
over-lap in these designations. Today, we are fortunate to have a wealth of wonderful books from which
to select. This text will help you discover some of those books.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF LITERATURE FOR CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS

The Early Years

In 1744, John Newbery (1713-1767) opened a book store in St. Paul's Churchyard, London, where
he published and sold books for children. Up until that time, children had been given chapbooks
(crudely printed little books sold by peddlers or chapmen).

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battledores (folded sheets of cardboard covered with crude woodcuts of the alphabet or Bible verses)
and hornbooks (small wooden paddles with lesson sheets tacked on with strips of brass and covered
with a transparent sheet of cows horn).

These materials, like other books of their day, were meant to instruct children. Newbery's books were
meant to teach children proper behavior, but did not threaten them with fire and brimstone if they did
not behave as did most early literature. Originally, most children's books came to North America from
England. They clearly were intended for instruction, but it soon became apparent that the books
nurtured children's imagination as well. For example, Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in
Wonderland (1865/1992) was soon reprinted in English-speaking countries all over the world. The
revolutionary quality of is Carroll’s two books, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the
Looking Glass (1871/1977), derives from the fact that they were written purely to give pleasure to
children. There is not a trace of a lesson or moral in the books.

Nathaniel Hawthorne is considered the author of the first American book written specifically for
children, A Wonder Book for Boys and Girls (1851/1893). England, however, continued as a major
source of literature for North American children for generations and led the way to global publishing.
American children made no distinction among British and American books or those from other countries.
They read Carlo Collodi's Pinocchio originally published in 1883, from Italy, Johanna Spyri's Heidi,
published in in 1879-1880, in Switzerland, and Selma Lagerlof's The Wonderful Adventures of Nils,
originally published in 1906-1907 in Sweden, with equal enthusiasm.

The Twentieth Century

In 1919, the US publishing house Macmillan launched a department devoted entirely to children's
books. Louise Bechtel Seaman, who had worked as an editor of adult books and taught in a progressive
school, was appointed department head. In 1922, the John Newbery Award was established by the
American Library Association, followed by the Randolph Caldecott Award in 1938.
In 1922 and 1923, two women, Helen Dean Fish and May Massee, became the first children's books
editors, each at a different company. In 1924, The Horn Book Magazine was published by the
Bookshop for Boys and Girls in Boston under the guidance of Bertha Mahony and Elinor Whitney.

In 1933, May Massee moved to open a children's books department at Viking. Other publishers began
to open children's books departments, and children's literature blossomed into the twentieth century.
Modern picturebooks began to develop during the 1920s and 1930s; from the 1940s through the 1960s,
children's and young adults' books became an increasingly important part of libraries, schools, homes,
and publishing houses. The spread of public libraries with rooms devoted to children's and adolescents'
reading interests opened the floodgates, inviting an eager audience to read books and magazines and
to listen to stories told aloud. Leonard Marcus (2008) traces the history of children's literature in the
United States in Minders of Make-Believe: Idealists, Entrepreneurs, and the Shaping of American
Children's Literature.

MILESTONES IN LITERATURE FOR CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS

1865 Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

1902 Walter de la Mare, Songs of Childhood
Rudyard Kipling, Just So Stories
E. Nesbit, Five Children and It
Beatrix Potter, The Tale of Peter Rabbit
1908 Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows
L. M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables
1911 James M. Barrie, Peter Pan
1922 Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit
1924 A. A. Milne, When We Were Very Young
1933 Jean de Brunhoff, The Story of Babar
P.L. Travers, Mary Poppins
1936 Edward Ardizzone, Little Tim and the Brave Sea Captain
1938 Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, The Yearling
1939 Ludwig Bemelmans, Madeline
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 T.S. Eliot, Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats
1940 Maud Hart Lovelace, Betsy-Tacy
Eric Knight, Lassie Come-Home
1941 Robert McCloskey, Make Way for Ducklings
H.A. Rey, Curious George
1943 Esther Forbes, Johnny Tremain
1950 C. S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
1952 Mary Norton, The Borrowers
E. B. White, Charlotte's Web
1954 Lucy M. Boston, The Children of Green Knowe
Rosemary Sutcliff, The Eagle of the Ninth
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
1958 Philippa Pearce, Tom's Midnight Garden
1962 Ezra Jack Keats, The Snowy Day
1963 Madeleine L'Engle, A Wrinkle in Time
Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are
1964 Lloyd Alexander, The Book of Three
Louise Fitzhugh, Harriet the Spy
1967 Virginia Hamilton, Zeely
S. E. Hinton, The Outsiders
1968 Ursula Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea
Paul Zindel, The Pigman
1971 Virginia Hamilton, The Planet of Junior Brown
Robert C. O'Brien, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH
1974 Robert Cormier, The Chocolate War
1976 Mildred Taylor, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry
1977 Katherine Paterson, Bridge to Terabithia
1983 Anthony Browne, Goilla
1988 Paul Fleischman, Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices
1993 Lois Lowry, The Giver
1997 Karen Hesse, Out of the Dust
1998 J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
Louis Sachar, Holes
1999 Walter Dean Myers, Monster
2000 Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass
2001 Marilyn Nelson, Carver: A Life in Poems
David Wiesner, The Three Pigs
2003 Kate DiCamillo, The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess,
Some Soup, and a Spool of Thread
2004 Russell Freedman, The Voice That Challenged a Nation: Marian Anderson and the
Struggle for Equal Rights
2005 Lynne Rae Perkins, Criss Cross
Jacqueline Woodson, Show Way
2006 Gene Luen Yang, American Born Chinese
Markus Zusak, The Book Thief
2007 Sherman Alexie, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Brian Selznick, The Invention of Hugo Cabret
Shaun Tan, The Arrival
2008 Kathi Appelt, The Underneath
Mark Reibstein, Wabi Sabi
Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games
2009 Rebecca Stead, When You Reach Me

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 ACTIVITY #1

Discussion Points and Exercise Questions

Direction: Read and understand this module. Provide what is being asked. Write your answer in a long
bondpaper (Hand written) and attached to the last page of this module.

TASKS:
Discuss the following comprehensively: (35 points each).
Criteria Percentage (%)
Content 15
Organization 10
Grammar 5
Neatness 5
Total 35

1. What important concepts have you learned about the brief history of literature for children and
adolescents? Make a timeline of events using a graphic organizer

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 WEEK 2
CONSIDERING CHILDREN'S LITERATURE IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

Literature for young readers continues to evolve along many dimensions in both content and form.
The continuing popularity and increasing numbers of series books, the availability of outstanding books
for emerging readers, including the establishment of the Geisel Award in 2006, the continuing popularity
of postmodern texts, the rise of graphic novels and of illustrated novels for middle-grade readers, the
increasing presence of novels in verse, a marked increase in high-quality biography and nonfiction
picturebooks, the popularity of crossover books, and an explosion of dystopian novels and gritty fiction
for young adults have added to the rich mix of books available for young readers. Further, the continued
experimentation with innovative techniques and genre mixing, the development of electronic books (e-
books) and apps, and the slow but continual rise in global and multicultural literature continue to alter
the field of children's literature. Today, literature for young readers is increasingly varied across many
dimensions of diversity.

The content of literature for children and adolescents is as broad as the hopes, fears, dreams,
experiences, and interests of the audience it reaches. It reflects the increasing diversity and
globalization of the lives of young readers. This literature also demonstrates the amazing talent of those
who write and illustrate books for young readers, who find unique ways of presenting their imaginative
visions. Here, we present some basic literary concepts to help you think critically about literature for
young readers.

Fiction or Nonfiction
One of the most basic distinctions in literature for children is that between fiction and nonfiction.
Fiction, by definition, is "something made up." Some fiction may seem real, but it is not; no matter how
realistic it seems, it is something invented, an author's vision of a realistic or a fantastic world. The task
of the author is to make the fiction seem plausible, or possible, within the story world that the author
has created. Nonfiction, on the other hand, is based on facts and theories. It presents information that
is real, verifiable by a reader. The task of the author is to be as truthful as possible, based on what is
known at the time of the writing. Narrative, poetic, and expository writing can be fiction or nonfiction,
depending upon the intent of the writer.

Narrative, Poetic, and Expository Texts

The basic distinction between narratives and other types of writing such as non-narrative poetry
and expository writing is that narratives tell a story that occurs over time. They often have a character
or characters who encounter some kind of problem and work to resolve it. The narrative is developed
through the plot--the temporal events or actions that lead to the solution of the problem--which
progresses to a climax, or solution to the problem, and sometimes, but not always, ends with a
resolution, or closure to the story. Texts that are not narratives do not tell a story, but rather may present
content through expository writing that seeks to explain, describe, or inform, or through the many poetic
forms that are not narrative.
Narratives are abundant in literature for children and adolescents; story is popular with these
readers. Poetry is abundant, as well, with children's poets exploring both narrative and many other
forms of poetry. Marked by condensed language, poems for young readers span a wide variety of topics
and forms. Expository writing, or writing to explain, describe, or inform, is found primarily in biography
and other nonfiction and is the preferred choice of many young readers. There are also books for young
readers that combine these basic text types in innovative ways.

Literary Elements in Narrative

Narratives contain certain literary elements that authors and illustrators work with to create
memorable stories. They include setting, characterization, plot, and theme.

Setting is the time and place in which story events occur. In most stories, the setting is important and
thoroughly described. In others, the setting is less important, with few details. Picturebooks with vague
settings in the text offer artists the opportunity to create images that present their own vision of the
physical surroundings of the story. In stories where setting is important, details about a particular city,
a part of the country, a historical period, or an imaginary place affect the development of the characters
and the plot.

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Characterization refers to the means by which an author establishes credibility of character.
Characters are the personalities that populate literature. Like people, main characters--protagonist(s)
and antagonist(s)-are multidimensional, with varied strengths and weaknesses and dynamic, growing,
and changing over time. This change or development is most often due to the events that occur as the
characters seek to resolve some kind of problem. Authors develop characters by describing how they
appear, what they do or say, what others say about or to them as well as what others do to them, and
by what the narrator reveals. In picturebooks, graphic novels, and illustrated chapter books or middle-
grade novels, character is also interpreted by illustrators who reveal appearance, thoughts, and actions.

Plot refers to the sequence of story events. In fiction for children, the plot is often a straightforward
chronology, but sometimes authors use flashbacks, episodic plots, or alternating plots, especially those
writing for an adolescent audience. Flashbacks provide background information about earlier events
that led to the creation of the problem the character faces. Episodic plots highlight particular events in
characters' lives, and alternating plots enable authors to tell parallel or contrasting stories from different
points of view.

The plot usually revolves around a central conflict or conflicts. Common conflicts include: self
against self, in which the main character engages in an internal struggle; self against other, in which
the struggle is between the main character and one or more others; self against society, in which the
main character combats societal pressures or norms; and self against nature, in which the main
character struggles with the forces of nature. In most fiction for children, the conflict is positively, or at
least hopefully, resolved by the end of the story; fiction for adolescents often contains an unclear
resolution.

Theme is a central, unifying idea, a thread that stitches the story together. Often a theme is the reason
authors write in the first place: a story allows them to say what they want to say about something
important. Most stories have several interwoven themes. Interpretation of themes varies among readers;
each internalizes it in an individual way.

Style
Style is how an author writes-the vocabulary, syntax, and structure that create a story, poem, or
piece of nonfiction. In story, style needs to reflect the time, place, and characters through dialogue that
sounds natural and descriptions that are vivid and fresh.
Point of view is part of style. Many stories are told through the voice of the main character, who reports
events in a first-person narrative, solely from his or her point of view. This allows readers to understand
thoroughly the thoughts of that character and often provokes a strong identification with that character.
Another point of view, third-person limited, limits the information that is conveyed to what a particular
character could logically know, but it does so in a more detached tone, using third-person rather than
first- person pronouns. Omniscient narrators, ones who are all-knowing, can reveal the thoughts and
inner feelings of several characters. They can move about in time and space to report events from an
unbiased position. This point of view allows readers to know a great deal about what all the characters
are thinking and doing. It also puts more distance between the reader and the main character because
the reader is viewing the protagonist through the narrator's eyes rather than viewing the story world
through the protagonist's eyes. Authors generally select one point of view and stick with it throughout
the story, although some alternate between two or among several narrators. In a well-written story, the
point of view provides a perspective that enriches the story.

Poets and authors who work with nonfiction also work with elements of style as they seek to
illuminate the concept or idea that unifies their work. In poetry, style is evident in word choice, form, and
use of poetic devices.

Genres
A genre is a category of composition that has such defining characteristics as type of characters,
setting. Action, and overall form or structure. The defining characteristics of each genre help us
recognize the organization of the discipline of literature, provide a framework for talking about books,
and help guide our selection. In this text, we explore the genres of nonfiction, folklore, fantastic literature
(fantasy and science fiction), contemporary realistic fiction, historical fiction, biography and memoir,
and poetry. Distinguishing features help readers recognize genres. For example, books that explain,
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describe, or inform are called nonfiction. Ancient stories that were told by word of mouth are known as
folklore. Fantastic literature includes fantasy, or stories that could not happen in the real world, and
science fiction, which might happen in the future. Stories focusing on events that could happen in the
real world today are works of contemporary realistic fiction; realistic stories set in the past are called
historical fiction; and stories that tell the tale of a person's life are biography or memoir.

Poetry is marked by condensed language that contains various poetic devices to call attention to
something in a fresh way within these general distinctions, however, lies amazing variation. Some
writers deliberately cross the rather arbitrary boundaries of genre by, for example, setting a story in
both contemporary and historical times, or using fantasy devices or folkloric elements in contemporary
or historical fiction. Within many of these genres, readers also can find subgenres such as mystery
stories, romances, quest Tales, sports stories, and adventure stories. Humorous stories as well as
serious stories populate each genre, as do series books. Some authors even blend fiction and
nonfiction.

Nonfiction
Nonfiction books are informational sources that explain or describe a subject. Children are naturally
curious about the world they inhabit. They observe and explore, question and hypothesize about how
this world works. Nonfiction outnumbers fiction in most children's libraries and is available for children
from preschool through the advanced grades. Nonfiction presents information in a variety of formats:
as picturebooks and photo essays, as how- to manuals, and as descriptive or expository texts. Books
intended to inform have evolved into books designed to inform and delight. Nonfiction covers diverse
topics, ranging from endangered species to buildings, history to philosophy, artistic design to
mathematical principles; nonfiction books about any topic you might imagine appear on library shelves.

Folklore
Folklore is composed of stories passed down through generations by word of mouth. As such, they
have no known author. As people told the stories to one another, they changed and molded them to
suit their fancy. Eventually, collectors such as Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm wrote the stories
down. Over time, other retellers have continued to shape the stories. Folklore reflects the values of the
culture in which it grew; it encompasses universal experiences as shaped by individual cultures.
Folklore comes in many forms, including nursery rhymes such as those from Mother Goose;
folktales and fairy tales such as the Brer Rabbit stories or Cinderella tales; tall tales exaggerating the
strength and riches of America such as John Henry and Paul Bunyan; fables-simply told, highly
condensed morality tales-such as "The Boy Who Cried Wolf"; mythology, which explains the origins of
the Earth and the relation between humans and gods; pourquoi stories, which explain why things are
as they are; hero tales, epics, and legends such as Robin Hood and Beowulf; and folksongs.

Fantasy
Fantasy, a type of fantastic literature, is imaginative literature distinguished by characters, places,
or events that could not happen in the real world. Animals might talk, inanimate objects are endowed
with feelings, time follows the author's rules, and humans can accomplish superhuman feats. Fantasy
ranges from picturebooks containing talking animal stories for very young children to complex novels
for older readers. Although fantasy stories could not possibly happen in reality, their carefully
constructed plots, well-developed characters, and vivid settings cause readers to suspend disbelief.

Science Fiction
Another type of fantastic literature, science fiction is an imaginative extrapolation of fact and theory:
stories project what could happen in the future through a logical extension of established theories and
scientific principles. Science fiction describes worlds that are plausible and that could possibly exist
someday. Scientific advances cause writers to speculate about the consequences of those advances;
science fiction is the result. For example, space travel led to stories of space colonies and intergalactic
wars. Cloning led to stories of the human implications of using cloned cells to prolong life.

Contemporary Realistic Fiction

Contemporary realistic fiction is set in modern times with events, settings, and characters that could
occur in the real world. Authors create characters, plots, and settings that stay within the realm of
possibility, and many readers respond to these stories as if the characters were actual people. Realistic
fiction grapples with a wide range of human conditions and emotions. Writers address contemporary
problems such as hunger, divorce, drugs, and homelessness as well as themes such as growing up,
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making friends, and falling in love.

Contemporary realistic fiction contains books that are about sports, adventure stories and animal
stories, mysteries and romances. Many of the series books that primary-grade readers devour are also
realistic fiction. Contemporary realistic fiction writers are from many cultures and lifestyles and present
realistic stories of life as they see it, which means that there are many stories to both affirm and
challenge perceptions about how things "really" are. No matter who we are, most of us want to have
meaningful relation- ships with others.

Historical Fiction
Historical fiction tells stories set in the past; it portrays events that actually occurred or possibly
could have occurred. Authors create plot and character within an authentic historical setting. Once a
genre in which history was retold from an all-white, and usually all-male, point of view, today we are
fortunate to have skilled authors writing from careful research and from various cultural perspectives.
Historical fiction ranges from stories set in prehistoric times to those reflecting the issues and events of
the twentieth century. The stories are usually told through the perspective of a child or adolescent who
is living life in a particular time and place. Collectively, historical fiction for children and young adults
now represents a broad range of voices and cultures.

Biography and Memoir

Biography tells about a real person's life. The subjects of biography are usually people who are
famous, such as national leaders, artists, sports figures, writers, or explorers, but there are also many
biographies and memoirs that are about "ordinary people who do extraordinary things. Like historical
fiction, biography has become increasingly diverse; today, the stories of many people from many
cultures and parts of the world are available for young readers. These stories are told both in
picturebooks and in lengthy texts. Most children's picturebook biographies are works of art as well as
works of fact.

Poetry and Verse

Poetry is the shorthand of beauty; its distilled language captures the essence of an idea or
experience and encompasses the universe in its vision. Emerson suggests that poetry says the most
important things in the simplest way. A lot of poetry is rhythmic and rhymed, appealing to the ear as
well as to the mind and emotions, but many wonderful poems are in free verse or concrete forms as
well. The best poetry and verse-from nonsense rhymes and limericks through lyrical and narrative
poetry-shape an experience or idea into thoughts extraordinary. Poetry not only varies across form, but
also across audience and content.

FORMATS
Special formats, such as picturebooks, graphic novels, as well as audio, video, and electronic
versions of books for young readers have had a major impact on what today's children have the
opportunity to read.

Picturebooks
Picturebooks are a special format in children's literature; we call them "picturebooks" rather than
"picture books" to stress their unique combination of text and art. Unlike an "illustrated book," or indeed,
a book with no illustrations whatsoever, in a picturebook the words, if present, do not convey the content
alone. The words tell us things not in the pictures, and the pictures tell us things not in the words, and,
together, they create an essential unity that marks excellent picturebooks. Picturebooks span the
genres; this format works well for poetry, folklore, fantastic literature, contemporary realistic fiction,
historical fiction, biography, and nonfiction.

Graphic Novels
Graphic novels are a unique combination of text and illustration in which the creator uses sequential
art in panels to tell a story. They span many different genres, and you will find them in many of the
following chapters. They are not all "novel length," inspite of the name. The term is used to distinguish
them from other forms of graphica, such as comics.

Audio, Video, and Electronic Books

Beyond the Printed Page In the twenty-first century, audiobooks for young readers are a lucrative
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market. Publishing houses such as Random House and Harper Collins are increasing their production
of audiobooks, and parents, teachers, and librarians are thinking and talking about their place in the
world of children's reading (Varley, 2002). Listening to a book is certainly not the same as reading it,
but listening to a wonderful recording of a great book offers its own opportunities for engagement,
literary appreciation, and comprehension.

ACTIVITY #2

Discussion Points and Exercise Questions

Direction: Read and understand this module. Provide what is being asked. Write your answer in a long
bondpaper (Hand written) and attached to the last page of this module.

TASKS:
Discuss the following comprehensively: (40 points).
Criteria Percentage (%)
Content 20
Organization 10
Grammar 5
Neatness 5
Total 40

1. Based on your readings, what important insights have you learned about children’s literature in the
twenty first century? Cite at least 2 examples to support your answer.

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 WEEK 3
GLOBAL AND MULTICULTURAL LITERATURE

Today, innovative authors and illustrators and technological advances have changed literature for
children and adolescents. So, too, have increasing globalization and the recognition of a rich
multiculturalism within the United States.

Global Literature
In the late fall of 2002, the International Children's Digital Library (ICDL) was launched, a joint
project of the Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory at the University of Maryland and the Internet
Archive in San Francisco. The ICDL now reports almost five thousand books in fifty-nine languages.
The more than three million users come from 228 different countries; in 2009, 53 percent were from the
United States. Strides toward the ICDL's goal of providing free access to children's books from around
the world to the children of the world are impressive; a great deal has been accomplished in the past
several years.

Organizations such as the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY), with members
from around the world, also help sustain a global perspective. IBBY has national sections in many
countries, such as the United States Board on Books for Young People (USBBY). IBBY sponsors the
Hans Christian Andersen Awards, an international prestigious award given annually for writing and
illustration.

USBBY publishes an annual list of outstanding International Books. Members of USBBY, the
International Literacy Association, the National Council of Teachers of English, and the American
Library Association produce books about international literature, such as Bridges to Understanding:
Envisioning the World through Children's Eyes (Pavonetti, 2011), the fourth volume in an undertaking
that began in the late 1990s. Readling Globally, K-8: Connecting Students to the World Through
Literature (Lehman, Freeman, & Scharer,2010) explores literature from other countries as well as that
written by those who have immigrated to the United States and those books written by persons living
outside of the United States but first published here.

The authors ground their discussion in the real world of classrooms in the United States. Additionally,
annual annotated bibliographies such as "Notable Books for a Global Society" from the International
Reading Association and that compiled by the ALA's Association for Library Service to Children's
International Relations Committee, as well as the USBBY Outstanding International Books list, begun
in 2006, and reviews of translated books in the USBBY newsletter, offer titles for those interested in
global literature. A study of the OIB primary grades books from the first six years of the award (2006-
2012) showed that most of these books originate in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and
Western Europe (Liang, Watkins, & Williams, 2013). There are, however, a growing number of titles set
in other areas beginning to appear on the annual lists. Selected titles from the 2015 list appear in the
Booklist at the end of this chapter.

Multicultural Literature
Although literature by and about people of color, what Virginia Hamilton (1993)) called "parallel
cultures," remains a small percentage of all publications for children and young adults, stunning talent,
stalwart publishers, and the cultural and social changes in the last few decades of the twentieth century
came together to create a twenty-first-century demand for quality books from parallel cultures (Bader,
2003b). In a three-part series of articles in The Horn Book Magazine, Barbara Bader (2002, 2003a,
2003b) describes the gradual growth of literature from parallel cultures. Rudine Sims Bishop's
(2007) brilliant Free within Ourselves: The Development of African American Children’s Literature
details the struggles and triumphs of those committed to bringing African American literature to young
readers.

Special recognition of authors and illustrators of particular parallel cultures, such as the Coretta
Scott King Awards (for African American literature) and the Pura Belpré Awards (for Latino literature)
were established in 1970 and 1996, respectively and are administered by the American Library
Association. The history of these awards reflects increasingly robust publication. The King Award has
expanded from the original single award for an author to awards for both authors and illustrators,
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including honor awards. The Belpré has always honored both authors and illustrators, but, since 2009,
is an annual, rather than biennial, award. Winners of these and other awards are listed in Appendix A.
Who are the authors and illustrators who have helped shape the literature we have today? Many of
their names appear in Appendix A as winners of not only the King or the Belpré Awards, but also as
winners of the Caldecott and Newbery Awards. We provide suggestions for resources for finding
multicultural and global literature in the section on selecting literature for young readers later in this
chapter. In the Booklist at the end of this chapter, we present the names of selected authors and
illustrators working within various cultural traditions in the United States as a beginning resource for
you as you seek out children’s literature that reflects the many cultures that contribute to the vibrancy
of the United States.

ACTIVITY #3

Discussion Points and Exercise Questions

Direction: Read and understand this module. Provide what is being asked. Write your answer in a long
bondpaper (Hand written) and attached to the last page of this module.

TASKS:
Discuss the following comprehensively: (30 points).

Criteria Percentage (%)

Content 10
Organization 10
Grammar 5
Neatness 5
Total 30

1. Based on your readings what can you conclude about global and multicultural literature?
Differentiate the major developments that happen in each period using a Venn diagram.

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 WEEK 4
LITERATURE IN THE LIVES OF YOUNG READERS

A TRANSACTIONAL VIEW OF READING LITERATURE

A transactional view of reading asserts that meaning does not reside in the text alone, waiting for
a reader to unearth it, but rather is created in the transaction that occurs between a text and a reader.
As a reader reads, many factors guide the selection and construction of meaning including personal
experiences, abilities, knowledge, feelings, preferences, attitudes, cultural assumptions, and reasons
for reading. At the same time, the text itself-the words on the page-guides and constrains the meaning
making of the reader. No matter what kind of book they are reading, readers build meaning that is
shaped by the text, even as they shape the text into meaning; the construction of meaning is a
transaction in which text and reader act on each other When we read we engage in anticipation and
retrospection (Iser, 1978), we both anticipate what will happen based on our prior reading, and we look
back and revise our ideas about what we have read in light of what we have just read. Thus, good
readers move back and forth when they read.

Good readers also know that no text contains all they need to know; they realize that they
themselves must fill in the gaps in the text from their own knowledge of the world. This kind of reading
is very much influenced by personal experience: the closer a text is to a reader's own experience of the
world, the easier it is to read; the farther away, the more work a reader must do to understand the
worldview from which the text is written (Iser, 1978). Rosenblatt (1938/1976; 1978), Britton (1970), and
Langer (1995) describe two primary ways to approach a text: aesthetic and efferent stances
(Rosenblatt), spectator and participant stances (Britton), and reading toward a horizon of possibilities
versus reading toward a point (Langer).

Although there are differences in the theories that each have developed, they all agree that there
are different approaches to and outcomes from reading. Readers approaching a text from an aesthetic
stance (Rosenblatt, 1978) read for the experience, for the opportunity to enter the story world. Although
this experience is often visceral and "real," it is virtual rather than actual, requiring not action on the part
of the reader but, rather, thought and emotional connection. This kind of reading offers readers the
opportunity to contemplate, to reflect on the ideas presented in the text and their reactions to those
ideas, and to develop their own values (Britton, 1970). As a ten-year-old said, "When I was reading I
was thinking, what would I do if this happened to me?" (Galda, 1982). In contrast, approaching a text
from an efferent stance (Rosenblatt, 1978) means reading for information, for knowledge to use to act
in the world. Generally, readers would approach a poem or fictional narrative from a primarily aesthetic
stance, a biography or other nonfiction work from a primarily efferent stance. Rarely, however, are these
stances purely one or the other.

Rather than being polar opposites that are exclusive of each other, they exist along a continuum,
with an aesthetic stance often containing elements of the efferent, and an efferent stance often
containing elements of the aesthetic. For example, if we read a beautiful poem, we would enjoy the
experience of the reading but 'also note the way the poet has crafted those experiences. Reading a
piece of historical fiction results in being in that historical story world for the duration of the reading, but
probably also results in having learned some facts about that particular time in history. Reading a well-
crafted piece of nonfiction offers the opportunity to learn about a particular aspect of our world (perhaps
birds) and then to use this knowledge (in this case to identify birds), but the reader also experiences an
aesthetic response the subject, language, format, design, and illustrations of the book.

READERS
Who reads are determines how they read. Instead of absorbing “one right meaning” from a text (an
elusive concept at best), readers construct meaning as they read based on their own background as
they read based on their own background knowledge, experiences, skills (Goodman, 1985; Rosenblatt,
1938/1976, 1978), and cultural position (Brooks & Browne, 2012).

TEXTS
The richness of literature available for children and adolescents means that every reader can find
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books with which they engage deeply. Picturebooks and graphic novels enrich the lives of their readers
with their carefully crafted visual and verbal texts. For most children, picturebooks are their primary
connection to fine art, and one of the ways they learn to "read" pictures, as well as a source for varied
models of language. The impact of a rich diet of picturebooks on children's literate lives is profound.
Children who live with poetry in their lives turn to poetry again and again for pleasure, delight, and
sometimes solace. Poems offer readers strong images, feelings, and ideas in language that calls
attention to itself.

Readers respond to poetry in visceral ways and learn to delight in language play. Folklore helps
modern children understand the basic principles of cultures around the world, offering absolutes of
good and evil, recurring patterns and motifs, and basic structures that are foundational for building an
understanding of the family of stories. Fantasy offers readers the opportunity to explore big issues in
the world in a way that is manageable and can be a force for moral and spiritual growth. Science fiction
allows readers to consider ethical dilemmas that may result from physical and technological advances.

Realistic fiction presents stories that allow readers to reflect on their own lives. So, too, does
historical fiction help readers reflect on life in the past and on the idea that history was created and lived
by people not unlike themselves. Biography offers much the same, allowing readers to come to know
biographical subjects as human beings impacted by and having influence on their society. Nonfiction
offers readers the opportunity to both learn about and reflect on the world they live in.

All of these genres have something unique and universal to offer engaged readers, and they
increasingly reflect varied cultural experiences and viewpoints. How, then, do we determine quality of
text? As we discuss in Chapter 1, quality certainly involves a multilayeredness, or openness to multiple
interpret tations, and an absence of superficiality. Nodelman (1996) puts it this way: What distinguishes
the most important literature is its "ability to engender new interpretations from its readers" (p. 187).
Who we are as readers and the quality and variety of the texts we have experienced help us build our
own personal "canons" of valuable literature, no matter who we are. In Chapters 3 through 11 we
consider quality in various formats and genres and a wide variety of quality texts.

Diversity
We know that it is vital that young readers have the opportunity to see both themselves and others
different from themselves in the books they encounter. The opportunities for diverse readers-all readers
to see themselves in literature as well as to learn about others, to find their own values depicted as well
as to consider new values, to find books a source of both comfort and challenge are available when
young readers have the opportunity to read and respond to a rich diet of literature.

As we discussed previously, readers shape their view of the world and of themselves partly through
the books they read, and the texts themselves are an integral part of this shaping. If children never see
themselves in books, they receive the subtle message that they are not important enough to appear in
books and that books are not for them. Conversely, if children see only themselves in the books they
read, the message is that those who are different from them are not worthy of appearing in books.

Further, stereotyped images of an ethnic group, gender, nationality, region, religion, or other
subculture are harmful not only to the children of that group but also to others who then get a distorted
view. By the same token, "essentializing' cultures by depicting certain "universal" qualities as reflecting
all members of a culture also presents a skewed viewpoint. Rich depictions of multiple ways of being
part of a culture make diverse literature a rich source of experience for all readers.

CONTEXTS
Learning occurs in a social context that depends on interaction, and literature plays an important
role in that context. Children gain experience with life and literature in the company of others. How
readers read and how they respond to the books they read is influenced by the contexts in which they
are reading. Hearing a bedtime story is different from hearing a story at the library's story hour; reading
on a rainy Saturday afternoon in the most comfortable chair in the house is different from reading from
eight-thirty to nine every morning at a school desk.

Reading in a space that has plenty of books, that provides time to read them, and that includes
other readers who support developing ideas is much different from reading for homework or contests,
and much different from reading privately.
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 Not all books are meant to be shared and talked about, even in a supportive classroom because
sometimes the experience of reading is so moving and important that readers might choose to keep
their thoughts to themselves. Given that, a safe and supportive classroom environment allows for those
private readings while also supporting a lively exchange of responses and ideas among students. All
kinds of reading opportunities belong in all readers' lives.

Classroom Contexts
One of the goals of a response-centered curriculum is to create lifelong readers. This involves
helping students understand their own responses to what they read, make connections between books
and their lives, and read widely for different purposes. As children become lifelong readers, they grow
to appreciate the use of language by a variety of writers, make intertextual connections, and understand
that stories and poems vary in meaning across readers and across time. Sipe (1999) points out that
contexts are multiple, ranging from the immediate context-perhaps the classroom library with
comfortable pillows and attractive bookshelves--to the wider context of the classroom and its
interpretive community, to the even wider context of the reader's social world and cultural background,
including popular culture. Langer (1995) describes reader-based literature instruction based on
transactional theory and research on response. Lewis (2001) details how power, status, and cultural
norms shape what occurs in one particular classroom. Apol (1998), Nodelman (1996), Nodelman and
Reimer (2003).

ACTIVITY #4

Discussion Points and Exercise Questions

Direction: Read and understand this module. Provide what is being asked. Write your answer in a long
bondpaper (Hand written) and attached to the last page of this module.

TASKS:
Discuss the following comprehensively: (60 points).
Criteria Percentage (%)
Content 30
Organization 20
Grammar 5
Neatness 5
Total 60

1. Using a graphic organizer states important insights have you learned about a literature in the lives
of young readers in terms of transactional view of reading, readers, texts, diversity, context, classroom
contexts? Cite an example to support your answer.

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 WEEK 5
PICTUREBOOK AS VISUAL ART

DEFINING PICTUREBOOKS
For as long as there have been written texts, there have been illustrations that accompany them.
Ancient Egyptian, Middle Eastern, and Asian scrolls contain both words and pictures; and medieval
European manuscripts frequently include visual images along with texts. Illustrated books such as
these have a very long history and many precedents however, picturebooks (we use the compound
word to differentiate them from books with pictures or illustrated books) are something quite different
and relatively recent. Unlike an illustrated book, in a picturebook the words cannot present information
or tell the story alone. The words tell us aspects of the story not found in the illustrations, and the
illustrations offer aspects of the story not conveyed through the words. This, in short, is what
picturebooks do; the central idea is the essential unity, harmony, or "synergy'" (Sipe, 1998) of the words
and illustrations.

Each is as important as the other; unlike in illustrated books, where the visual images are clearly
subordinate to the words. Indeed there are picturebooks with few or no words at all, in these wordless
picturebooks, the visual images carry the narrative by themselves. Awards given picturebooks can be
based on either the text, a" the Charlotte Zolotow Award for outstanding winning in a picturebook, or
the illustrations, as in case of the Coretta Scott King and the Pura Belpre Illustrator awards, as well as
the Caldecott Medal. The Caldecott Medal, which is given to the "most distinguished picturebook
published in the United States.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF PICTUREBOOKS

In their most popular format, picturebooks were invented by the talented illustrator Randolph
Caldecott in the 1870s and 1880s. This is the person for whom the American Library Association's
highest award for picturebook illustration, the Caldecott Medal, is named. What was new about
Caldecott's "toy books" for children, as they were called? Instead of merely illustrating a text that could
stand perfectly well by itself, Caldecott invented a form in which both words and pictures were equally
important-and necessary-to tell the story. His illustrations were not simply lovely embellishments, but
rather an integral part of the whole reading experience. For example, one of his most famous children's
books took the nonsense rhyme "Hey, Diddle, Diddle" and injected it with new life through illustrations,
which are still admired and enjoyed today.

The last line of the rhyme, "And the dish ran away with the spoon, is accompanied by an illustration
of the dish (a male) dancing with the spoon (his girlfriend) to the tune of the cat playing the fiddle, and
a whole assemblage of dishes and plates joining in the celebration. Another illustration shows the dish
and spoon romantically snuggling beside each other on a bench. By themselves, the words tell us
nothing of a romantic involvement between the dish and spoon, let alone the tragic result of their love,
which Caldecott visually depicts on the next page.

In other words, this set of illustrations greatly expands and extends our understanding and
enjoyment of the words. Today's picturebooks may look different, due to the great advances in printing
reproduction techniques, but the essence remains the same.

Randolph Caldecott, along with illustrators Walter Crane and Kate Greenaway, showed that books
for children with many colorful illustrations could be quite successful. At the turn of the century, Beatrix
Potter published her first picturebook, The Tale of Peter Rabbit (1902). As literacy rates improved and
more children became readers, and as printing techniques for reproducing illustrations made great
progress, the stage was set for a veritable explosion of children's picturebooks in the 1920s, here in
the United States.

In the late 1930s and early 1940s, picturebooks like Goodnight Moon (N-P) began to focus on the
everyday lives of children rather than on fantasy and fairy tales. This trend continues to the present day,
though of course fantasy and anthropomorphized animals are still an important feature of many
picturebooks. Some milestones of children's picturebook publishing are listed in Figure 3.1. All of these

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picturebooks are considered classics, are still in print, and continue to sell well.

As in most books for children, until the 1950s and 1960s, the presence of children of color and
children from diverse cultures in picturebooks was virtually non-existent, and what representations
there were tended to be stereotypical and racist. The Snowy Day (N-P) by Ezra Jack Keats (1962),
himself not an African American, was the first picturebook with an African American protagonist to win
the Caldecott Medal. John Steptoe's Stevie (P) (1969) is generally recognized as one of the first
picturebooks to represent the everyday lives of African American children from an insider's perspective,
although an overwhelming percentage of picturebooks published still do not contain images of children
of color (Martin, 2004), much less from an insider perspective, even today.

We are still striving for cultural diversity in picturebooks (see initiatives such as We Need Diverse
Books). Further advances in color reproduction techniques in the 1960s and early 1970s made it
possible for printing companies to separate the colors in illustrations, so that illustrators did not have to
do this themselves. Prior to this, illustrators had to create a separate illustration for each color they
used-an unbelievable amount of labor! This advance alone increased the number of picturebooks
illustrators produced. Today, we have embraced the golden age of digital communication and
technology.

CONSIDERING QUALITY IN PICTUREBOOK ART

• Illustrations are artistically excellent.

• Illustrations relate to the text in a meaningful way.
• Medium, technique, and style are appropriate to the text.
• Design elements work to enhance meaning in both individual illustrations and across the book
as a whole.
• Illustrations establish mood, setting, characters, and theme in picture storybooks.
• Illustrations are accurate and organized appropriately in nonfiction.
• Illustrations enhance the emotional impact of poetry.

ACTIVITY #5

Discussion Points and Exercise Questions

Direction: Read and understand this module. Provide what is being asked. Write your answer in a long
bondpaper (Hand written) and attached to the last page of this module.

TASKS:
Discuss the following comprehensively: (50 points each).
Criteria Percentage (%)
Content 20
Organization 15
Grammar 10
Neatness 5
Total 50

1. Cite the major significant events in the brief history of picturebooks. Make a timeline to illustrate the
events that happen in chronological order.

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