EA300A

Introduction

Purposes of writing a literature for children or about them can vary as they can be didactic ones or entertaining or combine the two elements in one literary work for children.

Since early times, authors wrote works that could be classified as children literature although in many cases, they were not meant to be written for children but time passed and there has been great interest in writing specially for children to have what is known with children literature which became important for children as well as for adults. Many works written basically for children today can be made as films which attract not only children but adults also. Children literature today can be a good material in most educational institutions and schools so as to be studied and criticized like other literary works as great writers present good works of it. The purposes of writing children literature can be didactic or entertaining or guiding or others yet writing for children is mostly either didactic or entertaining. This assignment is about how children literature purposes can be numerous specially as being didactic or entertaining and there will be discussions with references to works of children literature, critics' opinions and a personal point of view regarding the opinions of those referred o critics.

Body

Instruction and delight or didactic and entertaining are two major purposes that interest authors of children literature as they write this kind of literature for delighting the receivers or providing them with instructional lessons or morals that can be learnt from others' experiences but each work presents the instructions and delight differently from other works. Some authors of children literature decide to make them entertaining by providing them with funny stories, imaginary scenes and enjoyable trips and journeys so this way is following the delight purpose but when the writer tends to be instructional while writing a work as making it full of advice and educational aims for children means that it is a didactic one or written for instructional purposes. There are some literary works for children include the two purposes and this is better. Writing a children literature for instruction or delight should be made simply and professionally in order to convince the readers and attract them and to add to the work values that make it be highly ranked among other literary works. As adults usually are those persons who write for children, their effect is sometimes left in the work as their ideologies can appear within lines, a matter that has changed throughout time to have today's children literature which is wider and depends on open minded readers who can have the roles of doers and judge the themes or the characters not just being passive receivers who can not decide what is right and what is wrong or can not differentiate between justice and tyrany. (Hunt, 1991)

Adults have many different ideologies which they tend to include in children books and works because they think this will lead to the good for children. In the past, parents, teachers, preachers and most adults used to impose their policies and ideologies over the young children and used to direct them specially using stories with specific rules and morals but this can not happen today as this way of applying didacticism over children became not accepted even by adults themselves that's why the techniques of didacticism changed a lot and freedom took its role in writing children literature. In the eighteenth, chapbooks were very popular as to be among children and adults as well, they were sold by pedlar in low prices as their print was not that good and they were not meant to be for children specifically but they contained some pieces of poetry, verse or wood pages from books as "Robinson Crusoe". These books used to  present clear didactic excerpts from books as " A Little Pretty Pocket-Book" with its scenarios " Letter to Sir" and " Letter to Madam" as obedience and following adult rules were presented as the good boy characterizations with rewards for them and these works differentiated from girls and boys as tasks needed from each of them were different as girls have to be good at cooking and sewing but boys have to be educated. Didacticism in the past served what adults want as purposes but not what children really need to mature. (Hunt, 2009)

An example on today's children literature that presents both pleasure and didacticism in modern methods and in new techniques that can satisfy today's children minds is "Hary Poter and the Philosopher's Stone" by the author J. K. Rowling, she addresses children or adults using a story that contains a moral which is virtue can beat vice and virtue is represented through Harry character versus Vold Mort who represents evil and vice but not as advising or instructing, this could be clear in the following quote from the story:

‘Most of us reckon he’s still out there somewhere but lost his powers. Too weak to carry on. ’Cause somethin’ about you finished him, Harry. There was somethin’ goin’ on that night he hadn’t counted on – I dunno what it was, no one does – but somethin’ about you stumped him, all right.’(Harry Potter and the Philosopher Stone, page 47)

These words are Hagrid words who is speaking about the power Harry has to stop the evil of VoldMort as it is only Harry who can work against this evil due to the power of virtue he naturally has in spite of the fact that his parents were killed by Vold Mort. The lesson here is clear yet convincing and the author respects the audience minds. Many purposes are served in such a work as being didacticism because it contains the meaning of virtue can kill evil and faith can help a person to succeed and make important things in life. The delight element is never neglected in that work as magic themes are presented in images and symbolism which is high in quality. (Sparknotes team, 2014)

There is a relation between instruction and delight when literature is written for children as a successful literary work for children should combine the two elements in equally. Most children literature presented to us in childhood was fairytales and stories about dangerous creatures as ogres, gennies or gorillas as it was full of frightening stories as well as stories about silly dreaming girls waiting for princes to save them. "Cinderella", "The Sleeping Beauty", " The Beauty and the Beast", "The Frog Prince" and "Snow White" and others abesidere all stories with shallow ideas presented in a shallow ways of didacticism yet with great excellent techniques of delight, the relationship between delight and instruction in them is weak as the lessons in each story are almost the same in the others and the entertaining techniques are all similar. There are stories as "Robinson Crusoe" that is lacking some entertainment to be related with all the religious idea in it to make the story more interesting. A story like "Gulliver's Travels" is fantastic referring to the delight element but it needed more stress on instruction. The critic Jack Zipes sees fairytales, for example, entertaining stories only with no didactic purposes just written to succeed popularly. Another example on having good relation between instruction and delight is "Alice in wonder land" which is a work that attracted almost all people children and adults as the freedom Alice has to decide and choose through experiencing things and people raised the quality level of the book and turn it to be very popular and respectable at the same time as the images in it are very high and impressive in addition to the diversity of its events and confirming female role in work, traveling and society. (Zipes, 2005, Jack)

There are respectable literary works and there are popular ones but some works are both respectable and popular. Judging a children book, for example, regarding being popular or respectable is a process that requires lot of study and criticism. Mathew Grenby in his essay:" birth, infancy, maturity" said that most popular books are not very respectable like the chapbooks of the eighteenth century, he tried to describe how could a respectable or popular book be as referring to respectable books as being made of good paper, good ink, well printed and having good themes with arranged writing didactic techniques while on the contrary are popular books as being poor printed with poor themes and writing techniques that depended only on pleasing the readers. Some works prove to be respectable and popular when they combine the two good characteristics of popularity and respect which means a success for the book and the people who made it. An example on being both popular and respectable is "Northern Lights" which is a work full of imagination and delight with good techniques of presenting didacticism through the characters in the book but not directly or as a kind of advice. (Grenby, 2009)

Childhood is a very loving period of one's life as stories are told and mothers and teachers feed the mind with all the needed fiction and images through stories but the question is:" Were we that innocent to follow stories' instructions or the fairytales were not true enough to convince us follow mothers advice? Most of those stories of childhood depended on addressing weak minds such as Sinbad's story as how could a kid do such dangerous adventures without being harmed? When we read "Sinbad " adventures, we were asked not to follow what he did so as not to get harmed but we tried to do dangerous things to be like him. There were good stories like" The Three Pigs" which stressed cooperation in spite of the violence it contained. "The Ugly Duckling" is another example as it conveyed respectable meanings of racism and stressed how to respect others despite being different. Being a child means that imagination is vivid so children literature should carry delight along with instruction to let the messages reach the children easily and to make children get benefits as well as enjoying pictures and adventures that they read the children books for.

(Arab Open University, Block1, Children Literature)

The critics who worked on children literature were interested too much in every detail and this proves that children literature is very important so there are many views and opinions of the critics dealt with children literature such as Hunt who was right in many of his views regarding how adults controlled children literature and tried to impose their opinions as grown ups through children literature and I agree with that opinion but I see that things changed and today's children literature is different. A critic as Grenby was not fair, in my opinion regarding his description to the respectable and popular works as some popular works that lack good printing are respectable. Zipes opinions are good enough to me as he refused the fairytales to be didactic which I think true and I think the lessons most of them include are lessons for respecting power , money and beauty which are not the lesson needed to be presented for educated children who understand life values and rules. I found many benefits in all the materials made by critics regarding children literature and this enabled me to provide my own opinion regarding children literature matters and regarding works of children literature from past times or from modern present times.  

Conclusion

Adult love reading children literature as well as children perhaps for pleasure not only so delight is an important element in children literature but it should be gathered with instruction techniques to be didactic and useful. A discussion is above made regarding some children literature purposes, some works and some critics views regarding judging children literature and presenting how instruction and delight can be combined together to form a strong relation in a children literary work to provide the readers with respectable works which are enjoyable, didactic, delightful and instructional at the same time.