Conventional Children‟s Literature
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and white. If there is a jealous step sister, she must be ugly and wicked. If there is a princess, she must be beautiful and kind. They never change
until the story ends and they seem flawless. Besides, there are stock characters such as fairy godmother, handsome and brave prince, wicked
step mother and step sister, etc Lukens, 1999: 95. However, Hourihan 1997: 11, in his book entitled Deconstructing the
Hero, believes that the power of myth and fairytales is very strong. As the elements of myth and fairytales are constructed already, they are apparent
often in other generation stories. The stories have different title, character and setting, yet the essence is exactly the same. For example, the story of
Oddesy written during the second millennium of BC has the same pattern with Where the Wild Things Are that is written in 1963. The essence of
pattern is just the same, regaining position, freedom and domination. Roland Barthes adds that myth and fairy tales function as shaping people,
as well as children, “perception of reality” Hourihan, 1997: 12.
A nother example is the setting in conventional children‟s literature
which usually uses “Once upon a time” or “Long time ago”. The setting is backdrop where it can be everywhere even happens again here and now to
people nowadays. There is no specific time and place because there is only little time to describe place and time Lukens, 1999: 169.
Furthermore, the theme in conventional children‟s literature is very
general and universal. Almost all folk tales in different cultures have similar theme about human nature and life. Lukens 1999: 142
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emphasizes this by saying that themes such as a doing hard work to achieve success, b being kind hearted to have a reward, c being patient in
achieving a dream, d having inner beauty which is more valuable than physical beauty, are often told even written explicitly and straight forward.
Therefore, it is always easy to get the theme or moral value in the conventional children‟s literature. Even though “through folktales,
children can experience the wishes, dreams, and problems of people around the world and discover that all people share a need for love, hope
and security” Santino in Smith and Wiese, 2006: 69, telling explicitly theme, especially the one which is not specific is quite problematic for
children. It seems rude that the writers try to “preach”, not to teach. In addition, it indicates that children are not able to wider their knowledge to
get the message of the story. Conventional
children‟s literature contains several serious problems besides those already mentioned. The first problem is that there is
possibility of creating “fixed” or “universal truth” in the stories Lukens, 1999: 142.
The “truth” is created by language existing in the social context and they are very ideological. That the depiction of a princess who
is always saved by prince, a step daughter who is always obedient to her wicked step mother, a sacrifice done by a daughter, and revenge is not
good in those fairy t ales and folk tales are meant to „construct‟ readers
thinking including children. Children‟s books are part of the structure which is ideological. Pattern of the stories are constructed already and the
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pattern which is often apparent is Western patriarchal superiority Hourihan, 1997: 11. This kind of ideology is one example of “structures”
that is showed in the pattern of fairy tales, myth, and folktales which, as mentioned before, have
always had very strong influence on children‟s fiction.
The second pr oblem from conventional children‟s literature is that it
strongly contains what is called as didacticism. Gapalakrishan 2011: 5-6 elaborates few explanation about the emergence of conventional children‟s
literature. Starting from the 16
th
to 17
th
centuries at which fairytales, folktales, myths, and other religious and moralistic stories flourished, they
were used as didactic tales, to “tell” what is wrong, what is right, what to do, what not to do. Stories such as John Bunyan‟s Pilgrim Progress and a
short animal tales from Asian Culture entitled Pachantatra or translated as The Five Principles or Life tell moralistic value and directly tell them
what is right and what is wrong. Children who follow that will be rewarded by God, yet for them who break the rules and are not obedient,
will be punished by God and it is hell that waits for them. Of course, this is not always good and since “these stories were more cautionary and
violent, meant to scare children…into correct behavior” Gapalakrishan, 2011: 6. It means to say that the stories
try to “construct” the correct behavior of children which becomes standard or ideal. However, people
must be aware that the “ideal standard” is created by adults, by Western philosophy and its ideology about childhood.
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The other and the most serious problem is conventional children‟s
literature is not “children themselves”. Those stories do not reflect children inside them, yet they are categorized as children‟s literature. After
the emergence of children‟s stories in the 16
th
and 17
th
centuries, there are stories in the 18
th
and 19
th
centuries which talk about adventure and travel. It happens as people at that time started to discover new lands and new
fields Gapalakrishan, 2011: 6. There are some examples of these 18
th
and 19
th
centuries children‟s stories, such as Guliver’s Travels and collected short stories by the brother Grimms, Grimm
’s Fairy Tales. However, those stories mostly do not contain children. They cannot be the mirror for
children and it is of course problematic. According to Mankiw and Strasser 2013: 85,
“Books are mirrors in which children can see themselves. When they are represented in literature we read, they can see
themselves as valuable and worthy of notice.” Here, Mankiw and Strasser emphasize if there are no child characters in the stories children read, they
cannot feel they are there in that particular situations. They cannot “recognize” themselves as a child and their behavior reflected in the
books. As mentioned before about the point of view of fairy tales and folk tales, it is often not from children‟s eyes. Nevertheless, Peter Hunt in
Nodelman, 1992: 34 suggests that children‟s stories and the writers need
to “think about children and read children‟s literature from a child‟s point of vie
w”. As agreed before that children‟s literature is any literary works intended for children as the main audience, from whose eyes the stories
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are told, then, become s important. Nevertheless, the “eye” in conventional
children‟s literature is not children‟s, rather it is adults who write for themselves. It is supported by Nodelman 2008: 193 explaining that
“Childhood and a childlike point of view are, once more, constructs of adults minds that adults work to impose on children, in part by means of
children ‟s literature.” It can be seen that adults only uses the childlike
thinking when they were young. What is good about children‟s point of view is not to impose the child point of view like the adults experience in
the past, but like what children experience today.