the tendency of works children’s literature. The work before 1972 is influenced by a different method with the works after the era.
… whereas the majority of the academic books on childrens literature written before 1972 tended to be bland literary histories that celebrated the good
nature and intentions of childrens literature with positivist methods and a paternalizing ideology to match, the more recent studies have probed the
ulterior motives of childrens literature and explored its socio-political and psychological ramifications Zipes, 1990:7.
There is one method of approaching children’s literature that properly develops.
It is the reader’s response method that is according to Meek is based from the class room activity, as he said that most of the evidence for children’s progress in reading
and interpretation of literary texts comes from classrooms where teachers observe and appraise children’s interactions with books as they read them Meek, 2004:9. The
main concern of this method is reader’s constitution of textual meaning. The use of this method also shows that there is very little well-based research that focuses on the
children’s reading in its relation to their education. By foregrounding the readers’ constitution of textual meaning, reading-
response theory has become the most frequently quoted theoretical position in relation to books for children. What it also makes clear is the lack of any fully
grounded research on the nature of the development of these competences over the total period of children’s schooling Meek, 2004:9.
There is also another significant approach which comes from social linguistic
point of view. The approach puts most of its attention on the idea of educating the young reader to learn more about the construction and the composition of their
reading. This idea is the reaction toward the possibility that the young reader might be influenced ideologically and unconsciously by what they read. This method is not
only about the response of the reader, moreover it prepares the reader in responding the reading.
In contrast to the notion of ‘response’, critics who derive their insights from social linguistics stress the power of authors to make young readers ‘surrender
to the flow of the discourse’; that is, to become ‘lost in a book’. Sociolinguists are concerned that, having learned to read, young people should be taught to
discern the author’s ‘chosen registers, so as to discover how a text is composed or constructed. Then, the claim is, readers will understand, from
their responses to the text, ‘who is doing what to whom’, and thus become ‘critically’ literate Meek, 2004:9.
Most of those approaches according to Rudd have weakness in the attempt to be the perfect approach for children’s literature. The weakness can be seen in their
methodological aspect. Rudd also makes critical opinion on the systematic way used in seeing children’s literature. The systematic way is criticized for its narrowness.
Many traditional approaches seem to me to be seriously inadequate, and for a number of reasons.…many simply lack any methodological grounding, being
prone to both whimsy and subjective judgement…even where more systematic investigations are undertaken, they are frequently too
narrow…Lesnik-Oberstein, 2004:4.
These traditional approaches with their weakness can be said as a reason for the searching for the most appropriate approach to be used in discussing children’s
literature. The attempt to find a better and suitable approach is developed continually. John Stephens as cited from Lesnik-Oberstein’s view on the possible relation of
modern literary and critical theory with children’s literature, says about the attempt of seeing children’s literature with the paradigm of cultural theories. Stephens states that
in the course of the nineteen-nineties, there has been a steady trickle of notable books which attempt to place children’s literature within the context of those modern
literary and cultural theories which post-date the various reader response criticisms, or within a particular facet of that newer body of theory Lesnik-Oberstein, 2004:3.
Moreover, McGillis puts this possible attempt of approaching by explaining the theories that have been applied in seeing children’s literature.
Roderick McGillis, in 1998, writes that all these theoretical approaches may be, and have been, used by critics of children’s literature. Recent criticism has
forthrightly applied the work of structuralists, deconstruction, feminism, Marxism, Freud, Jung, and so on to children’s books’ Lesnik-Oberstein,
2004:3.
A type of this recent approach can be seen in the analysis or reviews that are conducted by Nodelman. In his analysis, Nodelman believes that children’s literature
is based on the society’s need or specifically the control of the adult and therefore it is a constructed idea. Nodelman said, “It would not be surprising if that were true,
simply because the field of children’s literature—its production and consumption—is so overwhelmingly occupied by adults” 2008:207. The same opinion can be seen in
Rudd’s idea that is focused on the idea that children are the result of some discourses. According to Rudd, there are two main concepts of children. First is the idea of
children with its natural essential meaning and the idea of children as the product of adult discourse.
This will involve steering a course between, on the one hand, notions that there is an underlying ‘essential’ child whose nature and needs we can know
and, on the other, the notion that the child is nothing but the product of adult discourse as some social constructionists argue Rudd, 2004:29.
Rose’s study shows another point of criticism on children’s literature which deal with the idea of children as the object of the system in making children’s
literature. The study analyzes the extent of manipulation of children as the reader of the course. As stated by Zipes, Jacqueline Roses superb study of The Case of Peter
Pan 1984 reveals the extent of the manipulation of the child as reader 1990:16.
Rose concludes the idea of children’s literature as institution and the role of adult as the constructor. Children’s literature becomes an instrument for the children’s life
process of socialization. Rose comes to the same conclusion as they do: childrens literature is basically
an institution in which the various genres are construed by adults to manage the socialization of the child without offering the child the means through
which he or she can question society and language as they are 1990:19.
The analysis that is done by Rose brings the discussion to a wider topic.
Children’s literature becomes the means for the manipulation and the molding process. The aim of this manipulation is the children’s reproduction of any values that
are constructed in what they read. It was through literature that the child was to be molded and manipulated so
that he or she would reproduce the structures of thinking and behaving that the writer represented in fiction and nonfiction designated for young readers.
The overt didactic purpose of childrens literature was predominant up through the end of the nineteenth century, even in works of fantasy 1990:19.
Rose says that it is the adult writers who designed all representation that could
be found in children’s literature. This idea arise others studies that aim for what has been said as exploitation. Zipes says that from this point on, numerous writers of
childrens literature consciously write works that concentrated on the problem of exploitation of the child and the notion of childhood 1990:19.
3. Theory of Children Desire and Adults Knowledge
a. Background of the Theory
The idea of adults knowledge and children desire are some points taken from Nodelman’s study on children’s literature. Children’s literature according to
Nodelman is a wide discussion that includes many elements that are related to each other based on their concern on the production of children’s discourse. Therefore his
opinion and discussion on this subject is mostly about the extent net and how those elements deal with each other by their own positions in the net.
Over the years I have often engaged in discourse about children’s literature with those who write, edit, publish, review, select, sell, buy, teach, study,
research, critique, and otherwise involve themselves with children’s books... all of these people have taken positions about the generic characteristics of
children’s literature, some less consciously than others; and my own views have developed as a position taken in relationship to all those others—a
position in the field of children’s literature, especially in the field of children’s literature criticism 1992: 133.
In seeing all these elements and the wide net, Nodelman puts his position as the part related to the net with his own concern which is the revealing of the nature and
potential of the field of children’s literature. Nodelman’s position relates to and intersects with all the others in ways that can reveal much about the nature and
potential of his own views and much about the fields of children’s literature and children’s literature criticism in general 1992:134.
Nodelman believes that some of those elements such as critics and reviewers have a big role in shaping children’s literature. They are able to affect the production
of children’s literature texts. The writer or the producer or children literature are related to the critics and reviewer in making their literature work.
Critics and reviewers not only have the job of trying to make sense of children’s books, but also, and just as centrally, their opinions and choices
tend to shape what texts have power and how those texts might be read; thus, what texts critics and reviewers consume and how they consume them
profoundly affect the nature of what producers choose to produce 1992:134.
In relating Nodelman’s opinion on the children’s literature as a field of literary work and literary criticism with his own analysis on a children’s literature we can see
the use of his idea about the influence of adults in shaping the text. The idea is about the role of adults who are included in those elements in the net of children’s literature
criticism. This idea can be seen in his analysis of six texts of children’s literature. Nodelman’s own motive of the six text analysis is his assumption of finding a
general scheme or internal pattern that is shared by most of texts of children’s literature.
..to read each of them carefully, and to think hard about the specifics of what I was reading before I presumed to leap to any conclusions about how the texts
did or did not seem similar to each other or represent the field as a whole 2008:91.
Nodelman says that texts have a power to influence the reader, as he said that whether their producers are aware of it or not, texts always operate in various
deliberate and non deliberate ways to give readers ideas about themselves and their needs and desires 2008:90. The mechanism of the operation of the power can be
seen in the texts itself. More over in his analysis Nodelman constructs a scheme that shows the way a text provides a room for the influence of its producer or adult. The
construction can be seen in a pattern that Nodelman found in his analysis of the six texts.
His analysis is focused on the internal part of the texts. The analysis on the six texts is done on his assumption that there is a possibility to see the relation that exists
on the majority of children’s literature works. There are, however, a range of strategies I am aware of and can name here. It
seems important to do so, for they underpin the argument I want to make: that the characteristics I found in the six texts I’ve considered might be shared by
enough other texts to be identified as the identifying markers of children’s literature—what makes it a distinct literary genre 2008:83.
These qualities are found by examining the internal elements in the six texts. These qualities are points where we can see the connection between Nodelman’s
analysis of the six texts and his idea of adults’ role in children’s literature production previously explained.
Nodelman’s conclusion of the six texts analysis is that the idea that fictional texts written by adults for children and young people are similar to each other to be
immediately recognizable as having been intended for their specific audiences—as children’s or young adults’ literature 2008:81. Those literary works are made with a
similar feature that they share each other. The main factor for the work to be made in such way is the fact that they have intended audiences i.e. children.
In the study, Nodelman finds similar features that are generally shared by the six analyzed texts. The findings refer to the internal structure of the texts such as
style, point of view and focalization, and the relationships of events to each other the plot. Those elements are made for a space where the influence of the elements in the
net of children’s literature producers can take its place. Those features are the point to understand the influence of those who have an important position in the making of
children’s literature. In seeing the relation of adults and children in children’s literature, this review
of the notions find out that there are many paradigms for the analysis. In order to achieve a proper view on the relation as the focus of this study, a chosen paradigm is
required to be able to provide an explanation about the subject in some important parts of its aspects. The chosen theory should able to see the relation from any side,
either adults’ side or children’s side. The explanation below is about the theory that will be used as a base of this study. In analyzing the characterization of adults and
children and also explaining the relation between characters of adults and children in children’s literature, this study applies Nodelman’s idea on the position of characters
of children and adults in children’s literature.
b. Children Desire and Adults Knowledge
Nodelman puts a great focus on the identification and the construction of children’s literature in his book. The book contains an analysis on the variety of
children’s literature. An analysis is done on six chosen texts which, according to Nodelman, are sharing features that can be seen as the general representation of
children’s literature. The analysis is done in the first chapter of the book. Those works are; Maria Edgeworth’s The Purple Jar, Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in
Wonderland, Hugh Lofting’s 1920 novel Dr. Dolittle, Beverly Cleary’s Henry
Huggins , Ezra Jack Keats’s 1962 picture book The Snowy Day, Virginia Hamilton’s
1993 novel Plain City 2008:1. The six texts are variation of texts with the difference of publishing time and other aspects among them and also known as texts of
children’s literature. This diverse group of texts was published in two different countries over a
period spanning almost two centuries…But despite their many differences, all six texts do have one thing in common: most people would identify them as
children’s literature 2008:2.
Led by the inner construction of the texts and their seen features as particular kind of literary work, Nodelman believes that more values can be explored in those
texts. He says that there is something about the texts themselves, some feeling or quality, that not only tells him that each of them is children’s literature but that also
makes them seem somehow similar to each other 2008:7. The assumption in his analysis is mostly about the role of a kind of power behind the process of
constructing children’s literature. This assumption is based on the idea of children’s literature. According to Nodelman the literary work is produced by a creator that
must make judgements about what to produce based not on what they believe will appeal to children, but rather on what they believe adult consumers believe they know
will appeal to children or perhaps, what should appeal to them, or what they need to be taught 2008:5. Adults’ control in the production system of the literary work can
be traced by looking at the internal form of the work itself. As commonly recognized, the creators of children’s literature are adults. The
creation of children’s literature is done under some purposes. This is based on the
