Product Description: Are you looking for a brief introduction to children's literature genres that leaves time to read actual works of children's literature? This new, significantly revised and streamlined edition of Children's Literature, Briefly introduces the reader to the essential foundations of each children's literature genre, supported by practical features and tools to suggest quality books and activities to advance literacy in the classroom. As new teachers build their classroom library, the brevity of this affordable new edition ensures readers have the resources to purchase and time to read actual children's literature. The goal of this text, then, is to provide a practical overview of children's books, offering a framework and background information while keeping the spotlight on the books themselves.
Good Book Had to buy it for class. Regardless, came in good condition and it's a pretty good book. Not too much details into each chapter but good if you want an overall review on different children's literature.
A must for new teachers This book isn't bogged down by various author histories or long-winded, complicated psychological breakdowns of why the authors think a particular book has more merit than others like many textbooks do. Instead, Tunnel and Jacobs get down to the nuts and bolts new teachers need to actually get children to read! With simple examples and amazing tools like booklists and the easy to use database, this book gives the teacher the essential keystones to teach and read children's literacy and then pushes the teacher to be a good role model and get out there and read! It is certain to have a permanent place in my resource library.
A student's review The preface of this title describes it as "a children's literature textbook for people who don't like children's literature textbooks" (p. v) which sets the tone for the rest of the text. Tunnell and Jacobs, both instructors of children's literature from Brigham Young University, offer an introduction to children's literature that is entertaining and educational.
The book is divided into three parts: "The Magic of Books;" "The Books Themselves;" and "Books in the Classroom." The first section discusses the value of reading, why children don't read, how to distinguish between literary quality and personal taste, and how to recognize books that are well-written and well-illustrated. The second section tackles the history of children's literature as well as organization of children's books into nine separate genres: picture books, poetry, traditional fantasy, modern fantasy, contemporary realistic fiction, historical fiction, biography, informational books, and multicultural and international books. The third section describes controversial books and the most effective way to deal with challenges, how to motivate students to read, and teaching with children's books. The aim of the book is to provide "an overview to shed light on children's literature and its use with young readers" (p. v).
Throughout the text, many examples of quality children's literature are used to illustrate particular points the authors want to make. All book references are included at the end of each chapter and each genre's chapter features a list of "books we like," compiled by the authors, which provides bibliographic information as well as a brief summary of the work. Included with the book is a children's literature database CD which contains a listing of 20,000 children's books which can be sorted by title, genre, grade level, topics, author, illustrator, year, or publisher. Instructions on how to use the CD-ROM are located in the back of the book at the end of the last chapter and they include color graphics to illustrate what the database's interface looks like as well as the tools used to sort books into categories.
One of this book's greatest strengths is that it is written with humor, reads like a dialogue, and is organized in a logical way. The authors draw readers into the realm of children's literature with teasers excerpted from various titles, descriptions of interesting books, and providing interesting facts about children, their literature, and its history. Appended at the end of the book are "Guidelines for Building a Classroom Library;" book selection aids, a list of magazines for children, awards in children's literature, and information for anyone interested in publishing a children's book. The awards section and books selection section are particularly useful to anyone starting out in collection development (or those who have been doing it for a while) as well as those interested in finding award-winning books for children.
While this text is not an exhaustive look into the world of children's literature, it is not intended to be. It does, however, provide a stellar introduction to the subject and provides readers with enough information to distinguish quality literature from poor, to understand genre differences, and to be able to motivate children to read, which is the most important lesson of all.
Review for Children's Literature Briefly I bought this book for Master's level class on Children's Literature, and it's a great book. It's easy to read, and jam-packed with useful information. This is a book I will keep & not sell back.
great as a textbook This was used as a textbook in my children's literature class and I'm glad it was! It really gets away from the conventional textbook by having the info relaying in an easy-going context.
Anything Goes Trivia
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