Is there such a thing as children's literature?

watercolor by Ben Clanton (my brother)

Lynda Sexson was in our class on Friday as a guest lecturer and presented the class with many interesting ideas and questions. One in particular seemed to stump the class: "Is there such a thing as children's literature?" My immediate answer in my head was to respond with a tautolity: Of course there is children's literature, it is literature for children, but the answer is so much more, that is why I kept quiet. There isn't one clear, right, or wrong answer because children's literature is proving to be more complicated than I have anticipated, and I should know better.

The question, "is there such thing as children's literature?", is more than thinkable. Lynda offered a possible response to the question: Children's literature is for adult nostalgia and an adults longing for home, I think that could also mean longing for childhood. While reading Cheryl Knobel's blog she wrote, in her blog posting titled 'Tatar's Introduction': "When I heard in the summer we would be doing fairy tales for this class I immediately went to my parent's home and picked up all my fairy tale books from childhood. As I pulled them off the library bookshelf, so many memories flooded back to me." Maybe this is a part of the adult nostalgia children's literature is a part of. Then there is such a thing as children's literature, it just isn't meant for children. But then what about all of those books meant for children that are didactic in relation to morals, etiquette, pragmaticism, and nature? That isn't children's literature because it is making the child literate, curious, thoughtful, etc. and which makes the child less of a child as Lynda suggested. Lynda also said "Literacy begets more literacy" which seems obvious and simple, but also something I've never thought of.

watercolor by Ben Clanton

So then it brings me to Sutter's question in class today: "Is there such thing as a child?" Today Dr. Sexson discussed rites of passage in tribes and that is the event of a child ceremoniously, physically(circumcision), and literally leaving the world of children and becoming an adult. But then again the question of "is there such thing as a child?" becomes more than thinkable. The suggestion that literacy is one of the worst things that has happened to human kind is a reasonable one because we have forced ourselves to skip childhood by becoming literate. Then encouraging children to learn and read is robbing them of something great because we think we know best. This makes me think of The Golden Compass and how children are being severed from their deamons because the adults/church knows best.