Last Blog

For my last blog I just wanted to reflect on all that I have learned from this class. May I say that I have really enjoyed Children's Literature and would not have seen many of the different aspects of the books that we covered. The class opened my eyes to what children think like, how books are written particularly for them, and why exactly they are. We learned the different techniques and studied such a wide variety of material. Books I had chosen to never read as a child are now some of my favorites. From now on, every time I read a picture book, or child's novel, the things I learned about theme and vocabulary and appropriateness will continuously fill my head. I will never forget the first week of class, my friends were teasing me about how we were "psycho-analyzing" children and their stories. I personally did not think we were going to that extreme or that it was a bad thing. It always helps to know how a child's mind works, and a lot of these stories have hidden meanings specifically for adults to see, that no child would pick up on and think is funny. In the end, I feel like a much smarter person for taking this class, and I feel like I have a much better and deeper understanding of the books I grew up on (ones I thought were kind of stupid are better than before because I understand many of the subtle differences I encounter).