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Carving on The Stone

As my ancestors use to say, “teaching in childhood is like carving words on the stone.” In other word they are saying, “a little pot’s soon hot.” That gives us an idea on how children literatures are important to teach children. One can imagine the child brain as an empty box so logically it is much easier to fill empty box other than trying to add more on a use box or a full box. For example, scientists had approved that teaching children in early age is the most effective method to have a successful children. " McIntyre said. "If you get to the child when they are younger, they'll carry it throughout their life." That show us how is it important to teach the child in early age either with children literatures or by any other way such as fairy tales, lullabies, fables, folk songs or a cartoon which the children could watch on TV. Unfortunately, that the world or the decade that we live in is not all a happy place with nice and good people. In other word, there is bad and good or evil and righteous. As a resort of this, parents and society have found that the best way to teach the children about the world and how to face there problem with an idea about what consider right or wrong, are the children literatures. However, those children literatures are important but not all of the children literatures are useful and benefits the child brain. Actually, children literatures are like double-edged sword and that is why parents should know and pick what’s they think is useful for there children. In conclusion, children literatures are most important way to teach the child about the real life and morals.

Children literatures in the past was basically stories and songs but now a day it been much larger than that, it’s include cartoons, manga stories and animation films. For example, the story of “Little Red Riding Hood” turn into a cartoon film and the original story had been upgraded to fit the child and globalization of the world now days. For instance, in the original story of little red riding hood the girl in the story got rape without fighting back and her grant mom had been eaten by the wolf which was represent the evil man back thin, but in the upgraded virgin the story show us how she Fought back and she got saved with her grant mom in the end. In fact, the changing in the children literatures happen due to the time and worlds change now days. However, scientists had approve that children literatures which is every thing that child can read is the most effective and healthy way to teach the child in early age. Nancy Anderson, of the College of Education at the University of South Florida, defines children's literature as "all books written for children, excluding works such as comic book, joke book, cartoon book, and non-fiction works that are not intended to be read from front to back, such as dictionaries, encyclopedias, and other reference materials". In addition, scientists clams that most of the digital way to teach children are having side effect in many way. For example, cartoons and digital stories are affecting the child eyes and the light, which came from the TV screen or any electronic device are destroying same of the brain cells of the child. “A serious dilemma facing today's teachers and parents is the negative effect the gadgetry of electronics is having on our children's learning potential and/or ability to focus in school.” For this reason, parent, society and school should focus more on the written children literatures because it is the most healthiest, effective and reliable way to teach children without any side effects. However, are all children literatures useful and have benefits for the child or not? The answer is no it is not.

The largest field in children literatures is fairy tale, which defined as “A children’s story about magical and imaginary beings and lands.”(Oxford English dictionaries) Most of the children literatures that this generation have know are originally come from old adult story which been upgrade to fairy tale stores to fit the children mind. For instance, Little Red Riding Hood, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Beauty and the Beast and Cinderella. Those entire fairy tale stories started from being as adult stories but within time they had developed it to children literatures. The main aim of the fairy tales is to teach the children about the real life and the morals life in sugarcoated. Also, The mean aim for children literatures is to teach the children about the real life and the morals with the way of positive thinking in early age. The professor in the department of Comparative Literature Ruth B. Bottigheimer says, “Children’s literature can be very valuable to the intermediate grade child.”(Why Literature for Children and Youth?) In the article the professor speaks about the reason behind having the children literatures in the education system. Since the Kindergarten to the university education level, student has been studying children literatures in order to upgrade their way of thinking and to increase their imaginary mind. The power and the influence of the fairy tale stories on children is a fact. Unfortunately, not all of the fairy tale can consider as a helpful, educational and teaching morals for the children. In fact some of the legendary fairy tale which all the children know, are really tempting the children to be ignorant, naïve and disrespectful to the adult around him. For instance, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Little Red Riding Hood ,in the company of the wolf virgin.

Children literatures help to shape the mind of a child either in positive or negative way. . One good example is “Alice in Wonderland” a fairy tale story written in the middle of 18th century. The story tells us about the girl ‘Alice’ who lived a happy life with her family but as the 18th century life style, a woman’s ultimate goal in that time was to get married and be a housewife. Alice was pushed hard from her parents to follow the 18th century life style and get married to a guy chosen by her family for her. Alice ran into the forest and found a hole in the ground and she entered the hole. After that Alice found a magic world filled with a magical creatures. The Alice in Wonderland fairy tale teaches the children to never look back and to have fun from the adult in biased way by showing all the adult characters as crazy, illogical, naïve and evil. All the adult characters were a bad example for the children. Even the cat was extremely wise in a way that the children would never understand him. For example, when Alice asks the cat which way she needs to take? The cat’s answer was ambiguous. He said that it depends on where you want to get to. That was a smart answer for an adult but for the children is not. However, it teaches that if someone needs an answer for his question, he/she, should ask the right question and to know what he/she exactly wants. Another character was the Worm, who smoked hard and looked like he was intoxicated; he keeps speaking with illogical word that no one could understand. This character reminded me of many adults who used to say that they will never smoke because smoking is bad for the health, but they had a cigarette pack near them. If the fairy tales aimed at teaching useful morals to the children, The Alice in Wonderland was teaching children, especially the females to go out of usual and to think about adults as crazy people.

One can find that some of the fairy tales, folks and stories are not always useful. In fact, many of the fairy tales could harm the children mentally by teaching them an inappropriate behavior and bad moral. On the other hand, it is a fact that children literatures will always be useful for the children in his education life. That led to the conclusion that society, parent and the school should help each other by picking the best and reliable children literatures to teach the children.

In conclusion, children literatures stories are a double-edged sword. There is no doubt that children literatures could be useful to teach children appropriate behavior and it could be harmful by teaching them inappropriate behavior. In my opinion, I think the full responsibility will be on the parents. The parents should pick and choose the best fairy tales or stories, that teaches their children what according to them is right. Now days, the parents should know that some children literatures need to be updated to fit in our new world system and the life style with the culture that we have. Our children are our future and they are the most valuable living thing that we have. Parents have huge responsibilities and their responsibilities are complicated. This is the reason why the society needs to help each other to achieve the goal that we all want which is to see our children living a better life.

Works Cited

Kim, Anna. "Teaching Healthy Habits at Early Age." McClatchy - Tribune Business NewsJun 05 2008. ProQuest. Web. 14 Apr. 2014 .

Sortino, David. "Electronics and Your Child's Novelty-Seeking Brain." The Press DemocratSep 16 2012. ProQuest. Web. 14 Apr. 2014 .

"Why Literature for Children and Youth?." The Reading Teacher, 9.3 (1956): 133-137.

Oxford Dictionary of English. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2010.