Research Focus PLEASURE IN JOHN BOYNE’S DARK THEME NOVEL ENTITLED THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PYJAMAS.
certain topic should be adjusted to children’s level. In conclusion, children are also humans who need to know about the world around them and their limited
understanding should not become a barrier for them to enjoy literary works. Dealing with children means that adults need to concern on how children use
thei r imagination. The power of literature is to encourage children’s ability to
experience more value through their imagination. Harrison 1981:244 states that sometimes the demands of literature for children are as exciting as the experience
of childhood itself, on how the imaginations depict the experience they feel through literary works. Furthermore, Harrison also explains the importance of
imagination. Although the imagination of literary works cannot substitute the real life experience, it can help children to find an exact greater truth than the life
itself. In relation to the importance of children’s literature, Saxby 1991:6 explains
that literature provides a source of vicarious experience and fires the imagination with sensory and emotive images to provoke imagination. The form of
understanding provided by literature could evoke the sense of the reader. The sense of imagination will directly help children to feel such emotions. Children
will not only gain the cognitive knowledge but also feel a form of vivid experience through reading.
The form of experience will increase through reading, as Lukens, Smith, Coffel 2013:4 explain
that “literature also may reveal life’s fragmentation”. Life
is a series of episodes consisting of a few kinds of fragme ntations. The life’s
fragmentation could not be separated one to another as it is meant to complement each other. The fragmentation of life would include friendship, family, society,
love, sacrifice and any other elements of life that all people will face in their life. The fragmentation will come in many ways as people choose their own path in
life, and it is the duty of children’s literature to introduce children on what series of event they will face once they grow up. “Literature allows us, as it does our
children, to hold life in our hands, the whole and the parts, to gather the recurring fragments and to piece them into a coherent pattern” Harrison, 1981:253. Every
fragmentation will be different from one person to another but it will help children to focus on their life essentials. The experience might be different but the
new understanding will surely help them to deal with it. Children will have different attitudes to death, fear, sex, perspective,
egocentricity, causality, and so on. They will be more open to genuinely radical thought and the ways of understanding texts; they will be more
flexible in their perceptions of texts; and, because play is a natural part f their outlook. They will regard language as another area for playful exploration.
They are less bound by fix schemes and in sense see more clearly. Hunt, 1991: 57
From the quotation above, Hunt believes that through children’s literature, children will be able to appreciate texts and stories. Stories in children’s literature
include the value in society and the aspects of life. As readers, children have a different perspective in seeing various events in their life. The exposure of topics
such as death, sex, and fear will make children understand more about the value