ST.

AUGUSTINE UNIVERSITY OF TANZANIA

FACULTY OF EDUCATION

DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGE AND LINGUISTICS

COURSE NAME : INTRIODUCTION TO CHILDREN’S LITERATURE

COURSE CODE : LIT 205
SUBMITTED TO : MADAM MASHAO
GROUP NAME : SHAKESPEARE GROUP
ACADEMIC YEAR : SECOND YEAR
SPECIALIZATION : LINGUISTIC AND LITERATURE
STREAM : BAED II B

NO NAME REG. NO. PHONE NO SIGNATURE

1. REUBEN ENOCK BAED 65503 0625085585

2. PAULO C. MATLE BAED 65918 0693331171

3. PAMBA GEORGE BAED 74661 0628881179

4. CHARLES SAMWEL BAED 75778 0688311936

5. CHACHA MSETI BAED 76063 0683419800

6. SEVERINE CHITEGETSE BAED 76321 0767629309

7. STEPHANO LAZARO BAED 77788 0683189152

QUESTION

Your friend Sintamei is planning to write a fictional story for children from the age 15-17.How
would you advise him to write a good book?
Fiction. According to Mariam Webster (1828) defines fiction as literature that tells stories by
imagination of events, people and animals. Fictional story is an imaginary story and is not
necessarily based on the facts. Generally we can define fictional story as a type of a story about
certain topic in an imaginary way that is not necessarily to be true or real, though it can be
imaginary but it may be true to a certain circumstances. This means that an imaginative story
may be real or not. Children's book on the other hand is a book composed for children to read or
be read to them (Charles and Tunko, 2018). Children's book do present basic agreement of
mankind, it seems un-necessary to urge children to read or read to them the literature book for
adults. Children have to discover their own literature before turning to adult Literature

Therefore, basing on our understanding, if children have to be helped to become discriminating

readers they need to know what a well written book for them to read or be read to them. Thus
teachers and librarians must be in a position of knowing how to evaluate children's literature,
consider interest, age and sex of children. Writing children's book of 15 - 17 age has to be the
best one, one writing fictional children's book of this age has to bear in mind the criteria that
evaluate a good book. The criteria include elementary factors like the setting, plot,
characterization, style, themes, and point of view. Thus, for Sintamei to write a good book for
children he has to focus on these criteria as elaborated as follows by various scholars.

Setting; is the environment of the events, the immediate world in which events occur (Godfrey
& Meshack,2010: 11). Defines setting as place and time from which we can be able to tell the
occasion of different events as they took place according to place and period. According to
Charles and Tunko (2018) story may take place in a specific location to convey feelings of
children. For example in the rural or town setting communities. In both places time should affect
the actions, characters and themes. Probably the real place and time enable children to imagine
the story.
Sintamei should therefore prepare a good book by considering the significance of the setting
which relates with the context and choice of characters. For instance animal characters like the
hare, hyena, and elephant usually make a child to reflect life in the jungle where these animals
live. For human characters achild usually experience life at home. This will make them
familiarize themselves with the context. On the case of time, the setting should reflect historical
time and at least experienced by children of 15 -17 years old, this will depend upon what writer
convey to his or her children.

Plot. According to Godfrey and Meshack(2010) defined plot as the arrangement or organization
of the events in a narrative or play. Generally, plot is the way a writer of a book organizes his or
her story from the beginning of the story up to the end of the story. Plot is one of the important
element in fictional stories, one writing children’s book has to ask whether the story tells a good
story, what character do and what happens to the characters. A well constructed plot is organized
and interpreted logically and naturally from actions and the decisions of the characters in a given
situation.

The series of the story is based upon actions and happenings. The plot should be exciting, fact
moving and fast written. The climax is reached at the close of the book, suspense is maintained
with the rising action of the story. The climax should be easily identifiable and develop naturally
from the story. Most plots in children’s book are presented in a straightforward narration, usually
children do not have maturity to follow several plots or many flash backs in time or
place(Charlotte & Doris,1968:9). Thus a good children’s book of 15-17 age should have a plot
which relates with the actions taking place in the story otherwise it will not hold children’s
interests long. The plot should be memorable and offer children to reflect back and recall what is
narrated in the story.

This is the arrangement of events in the story. It tells the beginning and the end of the story. The
plot start with conflict and end with resolutions, the conflict may be between characters,
characters and the nature, characters and society. Therefore a good plot children’s book has to be
well structured consisting the introduction to the story (exposition, rising action, complication,
conflict, climax, falling action ends with resolution. The structure of the plot which is well
organized results to the better development of style, theme, characters and the point of view
(Godfrey,2010:18).

Therefore, for Sintamei to prepare a good book for children of the age between 15 - 17 years, he
should focus on the plot arrangement which is not so complicated, but simple and
straightforward so as to avoid confusion. Simple plot will enable children find it very easy to
read the text, understand and judge the actions of the story.

By considering characterization. According to Moses & Barnabe,(2018) character is a person in

the story playing different roles or animals characters in a story. In other means character can be
defined as the actors in the story that play various roles, these actors can be personified objects,
animals or human beings. These characters help the writer to organize the plot well and develop
themes of the story. Fine writing involves characterization. The characters in children’s literature
book should be convincing, real and lifelike as our close neighbors thought sometimes they are
fictitious. A good writer of children’s books focus on the credibility of the characters, this will
depend upon writers credibility to show their true natures, strengths and weakness. The writer
has to reveal the characters through narration, record conversation with other characters, describe
thought of other characters and what do they say about others.

The characters should be depicted in everything they do so that everything they do, think and say
will seem natural and inevitable. The characters should speak in accordance with age, culture and
education background. A writer should ask whether the characters change or remain unchanged.
Not all the characters will change, characters may be in three dimensional stand out in sharp
relief and still not change(Charlotte & Doris 1968). All in all the writer of a good children book
should focus on the characters that come alive on the pages of their books and they live forever
in the memories of the children.

According to Charles and Tunko (2018) characterization is the art of creating people out of
words on the page. A good writer for children’s book therefore has to write a book by
introducing characters to children in the same ways to be known in the real life by children. This
is done by showing what they do, sharing thoughts and their general outlook, and letting children
to hear the characters talk. The writer generally has to show what characters do, their relationship
with others what they think and feel what they say and how they it, their roles and how the writer
describe them. Example round characters and flat characters which change and not changing
respectively.

Thus, for Sintamei to prepare a good book for children, he should employ simple and funny
characters that capture children's interest in relation to age and sex in a sense that make children
to be in a position of remembering or recall the names of the characters employed in the story.
For instance, the simple and popular characters like the hare, elephant, hyena, dog, pig among
other animals and human characters like Hawa, Seleman, Saada Mauja and Sekulu in the texts
Hawa the Bus Driver and Mabara the Farmer respectively.

Style. According to Godfrey and Meshack (2010) style is the method of doing or performing
something especially in arts or science. Then we can define style as a technical way in which a
writer uses in composing a story to deliver intended message to the audience. Style is what
makes work of different authors seem dissimilar from two different writers with different works.
A good writer accompany different style elements when writing children’s book that enable him
or her to reach the children interested meaning using the various elements of style . For example
the choice of words, image, onomatopoeia, metaphor, sounds effects and voice, simile, choice of
characters among others. A good children fictional book should ensure the best usage of these
elements of style in a way that children get the intended messages and morals of the text. The
usage of these should consider the level and interest of children. The best style for this category
can be both simple style and complex style because in this age category the best book for them
are those with or without pictures simple sentences two or more paragraphs and chapters.

In 2010,Bukagile and Meshack defined style as a method of doing or performing something

especially in the arts. In writing a fictional stories of children, the writer should simply involve
the selection and arrangements of words in order to make story good by selecting artistic
language which involving figure of speech as personification, onomatopoeic, hyperbole, Simile
and metaphors so as once children read the book they will be enjoying by both creating,
reflecting and touch their mood. The author of the fictional book should involve the uniqueness
of style for the aim of achieving the issue of writing good book for children.

Therefore, Sintamei has to prepare a good book for children of 15 - 17 age by considering their
understanding, that is to say that the style he is choosing should be the one which is simple and
memorable, and not the complex style, for instance choosing simple words, simple sentences,
two-three story pages and some pictures. Simple language will make their reading easy and easy
understanding of the story better and even capable to judge actions in the story.

By considering themes. According to Moses and Barnabe (2018) define a theme as the subject
matter discussed in a story. Thus, a theme refers to the central or the main ideas in the story in
any work of literature, themes become dominance in the story and bring us to come up with
various messages from the story. Theme of a book reveal the author's purpose in writing a story,
it provides a dimension of the story in actions of the plot. It should focus on the experiences in
real life, imparting ethical and moral conduct accepted in the society. Themes should enable
children to share emotions, teach them, inspiring them, awoken them and have respect of the
universal life (Charlotte & Doris 1968)

Therefore, for Sintamei to prepare a good book for children, he should choose for a topic that
emphasize on themes that will help in shaping behavior of children in relation to society ethics
and morals. For instance themes should be worth to impart justice, unity, cooperation, respect,
responsibility among others. Selection of themes should expose and empower children in critical
thinking and reasonably about the surrounding and knowing how to live with different people in
the society.

Point of view. According to Charles and Tunko (2018) the perspective from which events in a
story are perceived and narrated. The choice of point of view are the first personal pronoun
where one of the characters narrates the story using the first personal pronoun I second person
pronoun You and the third person pronoun where the narrator is outside the story and narrates
event that happened in the story. It uses she, he and they. The writer of the good story for
children should select the point of view that fits the children interest. The mostly point of view
used by most authors is the third personal point of view where the narrator narrates stories from
the point of view of narrator who knows more than one character could do. Writing in the third
person give the author the broad range of choices of what to show the reader. Skilled writers
usually narrates event as if from one character's point of view at a time. When an author changes
perspective of the narration from one character to another, the results can radically change the
meaning.

In general conclusion, the preparation of a good fictional story book for children from the age of
15 - 17 years old, Sintamei is in need and has to bear in mind to focus on the quality criteria that
evaluates whether the book is good for children or not in relation to the age, sex and interest of
children. These factors that have to be considered by Sintamei are things like the setting, plot,
characterization, style, themes and point of view as they have been described above as per
different scholars. Failure to focus on the above elements may result to production of a book
which is not considered as a best book for children under the age of 15 - 17 years old.
 REFERENCES

Bukagile, G.R & Yogo, M. (2010). Literature in english form 3 & 4. Dar es salaam: Nyambari
Nyangwine Publishers.

Charles, T. Mariam, M. & Tunko, Y. (2018) Children’s books in children’s hands. Sant Luis
University: Pearson.

Huck, S. C. & Kuhn, D. Y. (1968). Children’s literature in elementary school. New York: Holt,
Rinehart and Winston, Inc.

Kiura, M.K & Ngitsi, B.K. (2018).Critical approaches in poetry. Mombasa-Kenya:Cactus East
Africa Publishers.

Websiter, M(1828). Comprehension dictionary. United State: American Publishers company.