Essay on Children Story Books With Annotated Bibliography

Children story books are books that are primarily written for the purpose of offering information and entertainment to kids from the birth age till adolescence covering relevant topics and interests of the children of those ages through the use prose, poetry, fiction or even non-fiction forms. The modern children literature is classified using two different ways that are by use of genre or by the use of intended age of the reader. Under genres, children literature can be classified into picture books, picture storybooks, and traditional literature among others. The children literature has a variety of characteristics ranging from the use of repetition to help the children in the mastery, use of didacticism where the children literature is written to entertain children. Children literature also uses illustrations of pictures to attract the attention of the children into reading them due to the nature of the images that is attractive.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Order now

This research tries to look into the developments that have taken place in the writing of children literature. This is because the simplicity of the literature enables children to have a better understanding of what they read. The literature should also not be left behind by advancement in technology in book writing since inculcating technology in the writings brings a faster understanding of the content by children. I will put more concentration on the genre of picture story books so as to look into how the process of informing and entertaining children can be enhanced through picture story books.

The picture story books genre has a variety of characteristics that help it bring out the desired results. First, picture storybooks are humorous to make the reading experience enjoyable and worth yearning for by kids. When children like the reading experience, they are likely to perform better. Another characteristic of this genre is that the story books are character focused in that kids can quickly identify the traits of each character and master them easily. Thirdly, picture storybooks are always rich in action and use less of adjectives and other parts of speech. They consist of fewer words. Another characteristic of the picture story books is that they have a unique twist at the end such as surprise endings that can leave the kids with the urge to know more hence encourage them to read more. Another characteristic of picture story books is that they use pacing in that they jump into the story directly without many explanations. This makes the kids have a concentration in the books as they get what they wanted from the text easily.

Pictorial storytelling dates 130 years ago during the cave wall paintings. The first person to bring the image into a storytelling object other than mere decorations as before was an artist called Randolph Caldecott. It was until the late 19th century and the 20th century that picture books blossomed. This was because of the developments of the new printing technology that helped in the printing of the books. The blossoming of the picture books also came as a result of the change in attitude towards childhood. In the year 1950, a unique cultural shift occurred when the difference between the artists and authors started to get blurred of fade. This was due to the cropping of graphic designers who could do both the writing and illustration of picture books as a way of explaining their visual thoughts. The designers developed a playful understanding that was also sophisticated of the relationship in written words to pictures, thoughts, and sounds and also shapes. In 1960, a generation of artists from Britain emerged from an art school, and this made picture books enter a new era of greater paint and color.

There are various picture story books that serve different purposes to the reader inform of the teachings got from them. Various books that fall under the genre of picture books are; Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown, The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg, The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein, Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig, Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans among others. These books explain the different scenario that is educative to kid readers.

The genre of picture books has drastically changed over the years due to change in technology and also the change in how humans perceive childhood. Advancement in technology has made it easier in the printing and animation of pictures used in the picture books. The technology has also helped in the improvement of the quality of pictures.

Picture books have evolved over a long duration of time since the times of wall paintings to today's images that are designed using advanced computer technologies. The images in the books should include pictures of an object that the kids are familiar with so as to give them the urge and fun in reading.

References

Herz, Henry. "So You Want to Write a Picture Book for Children? " The Write Life, 19 May. 2014, http://thewritelife.com/write-picture-book/. Accessed 28 Nov. 2016.

The author says that picture books are always short mainly a 32-page work that is printed in large fonts. He also notes the challenges that one may face in the process of writing of a picture book since it requires the combination of various arts so as to develop content that can be understood by the young writers. The word count in many picture books is 500 or less than 100 words. The author says that the books contain pictures in almost all the page just like the name suggests.

Evans, Kathryn. " Ten Essential Picture Book Elements." SCBWI, BRITISH ISLES, Dec 17. 2012, https://mrsbung.wordpress.com/2012/12/17/ten-essential-picture-book-elements/. Accessed 28 Nov. 2016.

Here the author looks at all the elements that are used to make a picture book enjoyable to read and easy to understand. The features include the use of a great title, simple characters that can be read by the young readers and popular themes that the readers are conversant with.

Calabrese, Lori. " How Picture Books Play a Role in a Child's Development." The Children's Book Review, 6 Nov. 2010, https://www.thechildrensbookreview.com/weblog/2010/11/how-picture-books-play-a-role-in-a-child%E2%80%99s-development.html. Accessed 21 Nov. 2016.

The author looks into the child's development depending on the type of picture books he or she uses for his early stage of reading. These picture books act as motivators and help the child to develop a thirst for knowledge. Depending on the books a child is exposed to he or she comes to know more about the world by reading.

Popova, Maria. " A Brief History of Children's Picture Books and the Art of Visual Storytelling. " The Atlantic, 24 Feb. 2012, http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/02/a-brief-history-of-childrens-picture-books-and-the-art-of-visual-storytelling/253570/. Accessed 21 Nov. 2016.

The author looks at the history of the picture books from the ancient times of wall painting up to date when pictures have been utilized more than the earlier times when they acted as beautiful pictures. Picture books have moved all the way from the hand drawings to today's drawings by computers. The author also shows how the authors have developed to become artists in their fields of picture book development. He analyses how people had acquired knowledge in the art field, unlike the ancient times when people used acquired talents to represent a visual idea.