by Joan Inong

Created on: June 22, 2009

Children's books are expected to teach children something about themselves or the world around them. Essentially, a children's book is supposed to not only give the reader pleasure when reading it but also teach and provide children with advice that they can keep and perhaps follow for the rest of their lives.

In the past, children's books were filled with morality, symbolism, and stories that were akin to parables. When you read about a horse's fight with a cat, it wasn't merely about simple issues that were resolved by the end of the book. When a child is supposed to read that book, he must take into consideration what he would do in that same situation and how he is supposed to handle that situation.

What we really expect children's books to do is to teach children about life lessons in a simple and accessible manner. Children aren't yet ready to handle what is considered the "adult world;" so, when they read a book, the book should not handle situations in an adult-like manner. Instead, the book should be at the same level as the children's minds naturally are. Children like to think in an imaginative way; that is why we rarely, if ever, see a how-to-improve-yourself manual book for children but we see many of them for adults. Children want to read about animals and characters in faraway or imaginary lands and they want those characters to teach them about morals and social relationships.

Today, most of the children's books that we see do have some sort of simple moral at the end of the story. And, there are even some books that outright discuss many aspects of social and personal life, such as how to be a good sibling, how to deal with moving to a new house and going to a new school, or how to be a better friend. All of these books are written in a simple manner, so that children are able to understand the book with one reading. The advice that these books give are practical; almost every child will be able to relate to the circumstances and situations in the stories, which makes the end lessons more accessible.

Children's books today do give children the amount of advice that a book can give, but we can't expect these books to give children all the advice that children need. Parents or guardians cannot give their responsibility of giving advice to their children wholly to children's books. That would be an expectation that is impractical and unintelligent.

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