Asking the question about why we shall study Children’s literature, the author has the occasion to list a

various number of arguments which justify his opinion that this kind of literature is at least as important
as what is usually called adults literature. For me, one of the best arguments for the importance of re-
adjusting general position in front of children’s literature consists in its huge contribution to acquisition
of cultural values.

Before all, this acquisition is related to the educational aspect of children’s literature. Undoubtedly most
kids had their first contact to the rules/ fundamental values of the society in which they live (in
particular) and of the humankind (in general) through the stories they were told/they read. Studying
this kind of literature could help us to have a better understanding of our mechanisms of transmission
and selection of values and of how they are learnt from the first years of life.

Second, cultural values do not only refer to the moral values, but also to the aesthetic values. Thus,
studying the children’s literature books should also imply studying/considering their style (so this makes
no difference between studying adults/children books) and observing how the canon is built in relation
to what we start to see as good style even from our first years.

The author of the book argues that the conflict of opinions regarding children’s literature has its roots in
the uncertainty regarding the critical principals that shall be used when evaluating a children’s book. He
makes a reference to a notable British award giving committee which, at some point, was wondering if
the criteria used to evaluate children’s fiction should be the same with the one used to evaluate adult’s
literature (having, usually, aesthetic nature). The author insists on the fact that language, although is
really important, is usually neglected when it comes to studying children’s literature. He also underlines
that many text are not enough textually analyzed.

In the third part of the chapter dedicated to “The situation of children’s literature”, Peter Hunt talks
about different kinds of confusion of motives which appear when people approach children’s literature.
First, he presents a paradoxical situation: although that it is generally believed that the children’s books
written in the 19th century were heavily didactic, primarily designed to mould children intellectually and
politically, when we analyze real-life situations we observe that the more we get close to the present,
the more the children’s books are written so that they meet an educational purpose. Giving as an
example the reprinting of Beatrix Potter’s text, Peter Rabbit, the author shows how in the past the
accent was less on what could be regarded as “shocking” or “un-educational” and more on the style.
Books of the past were more complex (in the terms of language and illustration for example), and in his
opinion this was ok, as we shall not put an equal sign between “simplicity” (because that is how we see
it, not because it is a true characteristic -- a kind of label-) of the children’s brain and the necessary
simplicity of the children’s fiction. He thinks we are wrong when we consider children incapable of
understanding certain things. Another type of mistake associated with the general approach of
children’s literature is linked to the problem of censorship. There are two extremist opinions regarding
this topic: on the one hand there is an ideal of freedom which says that “all censorship is bad”, on the
other hand there are people obsessed with the responsibility of what shall and what shall not be shown
to kids. I think that the main idea of this part is that we should not fall in the trap of extremes and that
we should not read the children’s books guided only by the labels related to something which is,
however, un unclear definition of children’s literature.

The main idea in the last part of the second chapter is that we, as readers, are influenced in judging a
text by some prejudices. Peter Hunt argues this opinion by showing a technique which can be use to
become aware of these prejudices, a technique that he used with his students- decontextualization. He
found out that his students associated some specific settings (like a hospital, a beer shop), replies (like
“they had no right”), styles (“superior”, complex) to adult’s literature, while they linked the using of
cliché and the high level of narrative control to the children’s literature. The conclusion that might be
drown from such observations conducts to the strange position in which children’s literature is- for the
majority of people, and even for the highly educated students in the humanities field, children literature
seems to be rather a kind of bad literature (in terms of quality) or no literature at all.

cliche