GENRES of Children’s Literature
In a literature-based reading program, pupils encounter a range of literary genres – picture books, fairy-tales, folktales and other forms of traditional literature, fantasy, including animal stories, realistic fiction, historical fiction and poetry.
One way of cutting up the literature pie (more than 50,000 books in print in America and about 5,000 new tides published each year) is to categorize books according to their format. Although most children's books are easily identified as either a picture book or a chapter book.
Another way to view the field of children's literature is from the so-called issues approach. Books are categorized by the issue or social theme that drives the story: death, racism, family life, and so on. The categories of social issues may be universal and timeless (family dynamics) or narrow and current (censorship and rock music lyrics). Because of the multitude of special interest issues, this approach to dealing with children's literature can become unwieldy.
The most common method of cutting children's literature into small bites is to group books by genre, a French word meaning "type" or "kind." Genre is a familiar term in many artistic areas: the genre of the detective film, or the genre of adult literature (novel, novella, short story play, and poem). In children's literature, genre identifies a book according to content.
| Traditional Fantasy | ||||
| Fantasy | ||||
| Modern Fantasy | ||||
| Fiction | Science Fiction | |||
| Historical Fiction | ||||
| Prose or Poetry | Realism | |||
| Contemporary Realistic Fiction | ||||
| Biography | ||||
| Nonfiction | ||||
| Informational |
All literature is either poetry or prose. To define poetry, the initial impulse might be to identify it as rhyming or as shorter or more rhythmic than prose. Yet these obvious elements of poetry are not true distinctions. Some poetry does not rhyme. Some poetry is longer than some prose. Some poetry is less rhythmic than some prose. With all the forms poetry can take – haiku, sonnet, couplet, blank verse, limerick, narrative, diamante, and free verse, to name a few – finding a definition that both identifies them all and distinguishes them from prose is next to impossible. It is easier and more practical to define poetry by saying what it is not. Poetry is not written in paragraphs; prose is. Poetry may appear on the page as a single line, thin column, or in the shape of a tree, but not in a paragraph. Beyond that difference in format, the function of the two literary forms is identical: Both poetry and prose explore the world, give insight into the human condition, or present the view of the writer.
The difference between fiction and nonfiction is documentation. Fiction springs largely from the author's imagination. An idea, question, or incident from the real world may give rise to a work of fiction, but the structure and details come from the workings of the mind. They cannot be documented elsewhere. Nonfiction, however, centers upon a part of the universe that can be documented. The evidence and facts presented in nonfiction books can be verified. Nonfiction books are classified as biography and informational. Biography (and autobiography) tells the story of an actual person's life or at least part of that story. As with all nonfiction, reliable sources and documentation are imperative.
Informational books generally are called nonfiction in adult publishing. No area of children's literature has changed so dramatically in recent years as has nonfiction. Although some excellent informational books were written decades ago, in recent times subject matter has broadened, quality of writing and illustration has improved, and the number of books published has increased.
Realistic fiction and fantastic fiction have much in common. Both are invented stories, usually with invented characters, and they may take place in invented settings. Even when the setting is real, like Boston or Berlin, the exact neighborhood is often imagined. The difference between realism and fantasy lies in the laws of our universe. If an invented story takes place in the world as we know it – where dogs bark, trees are green, and gravity is everywhere – it is realistic fiction. The world where the story happens is real, even if the characters and events are invented. If a story has one or more elements not found in our world – if animals speak, magic is present, or time travel is involved – it is then called fantasy. The rest of the story might be absolutely realistic, but with any deviation from natural physical law it is called fantasy.
The aim of both historical fiction and contemporary realistic fiction is to tell an interesting story about people in our world. The definitions are clear in the names of the genres. Contemporary identifies a story that takes place in today's world; historical indicates a tale that happened earlier, as in pioneer America or medieval England.
Like historical and contemporary fiction, the division between traditional fantasy and modern fantasy relates to antiquity. Some stories are as old as humanity. These ancient stories are called traditional because they are part of our human tradition. Their origin is oral, their authors unknown. Although they now have been preserved in print, those who wrote them down were collectors not authors. If a fantasy story has an identifiable author, and therefore originated in print, it is called modern fantasy. Thus the tales of Hans Christian Andersen are classified as modern fantasy, even though the feel of the stories is often closer to traditional storytelling than other modern fantasy Science fiction, a part of modern fantasy, is a specialized form that deals with scientific possibilities.
None of the genre divisions is watertight, and the categories are not to be slavishly followed. It is possible to make a solid case that some books belong in more than one genre. Generally, these categories are less important to children than to adults. Children feel no particular compulsion to read broadly, and they usually do not care if a certain book belongs to a certain category. What they want is a good book, regardless of the genre or classification. But adults can use the six categories of genre to help understand the field of children's literature more clearlyAfter exploring genres, we consider two formats and two topics important in children's literature. The picture book, still a mainstay of beginning reading and the primary classroom, has expanded its appeal to include older children and extensive informational content. Poetry includes all genres – a poem may fall into any of the six categories.