RESEARCH ESSAY ON CHILDREN'S LITERATURE

Research Essay on Children's Literature



Research Essay on Children's Literature

Chapter 1

In reading a novel children are often captured by the vivid imagination that the author is able to create in their book. In writing for a child the author must some how capture the attention of the child so that the child has the will to read further. Roald Dahl has written numerous books such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Witches and Matilda whereby imagination plays a key role in capturing the child's attention. How is an author capable of incorporating imagination throughout a novel? Roald Dahl's novels are filled with imaginative situations, characters and devices that capture the attention of readers of all ages.

To begin with, Roald Dahl creates numerous amounts of outrageously imaginative situations that make each one of his novels unique and exciting to read. For example, in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Grandpa Joe expresses his amazement that "people are actually going to be allowed to go inside the factory"(p.21), which creates a tension in the readers mind of how incredible the chocolate factory actually is. The chocolate factory is where all the imaginative situations occur in this novel. The chocolate room is where Augustus, a fat boy that eats like a pig, is intrigued by the chocolate that flows like a river and ends up falling "into the river" (p.76) due to his need to eat the chocolate. Furthermore in entering the gum room, Violet, the world's champion gum chewer, must test Mr. Wonka's knew gum ball but upon chewing this piece of gum Violet finds herself changing into "a gigantic blueberry"(p.103). Violet inflates like a giant balloon and her skin tone changes to blue and purple. These are two cases in which children disobeyed rules and found themselves a part of an imaginative situation. Secondly, The Witches, is filled with creative and mind boggling situations. In looking at this novel the reader can be amazed at the fact that "two hundred" (p.63) women are in fact attending a witch conference.

How often in our everyday lives does the media report about some sort of secret witch conference that is taking place somewhere around the world. So how far fetched is the whole idea of a witch conference? Moreover, when Bruno, a young boy, eats a chocolate bar that was given to him by a witch, within a matter of time Bruno finds himself in a very awkward situation. Upon devouring this morceau of chocolate he finds himself changing into "a small brown mouse" (p.104). One could only hope that in reality chocolate couldn't have that affect or the earth would be over populated with billions of mice. Finally, Matilda, is also filled with many scenes of imagination. For example, when Matilda is in class she is able to concentrate on a glass filled with water hereby causing the glass to fall over and the water to "splash all over" (p.166) the ...