Children's Literature

We all remember certain books we read when we were kids, or more the books that were read to us: The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Jill Murphy's books, Dr. Seuss (which I still read now), Roald Dahl, the list goes on and on. But what did they really do to us as kids? What, looking back, do we really think of them? What books, if we all turned writers, would we turn to and remember to help us? 


I was a very peculiar child and one of my favourite past times was sitting out in the garden copying passages from Dahl's The Witches. Unfortunately I left the book outside and the rain turned my precious copy into a crinkled mess. But it was the horrific witches, the terrifying rules and the sinister experiences that made me love this book. It was so dark, so scary that I couldn't help but turn each page with trembling hands. 


Now, looking back, these types of books affected me greatly - not in a traumatic way - but in a "I want to write a creepy story sometime!" kind of way. When people read my children's stories they'd ask the classic question: "what messed you up to make you write what you write?" Stephen King gets asked the very same question - for obvious reasons - but the answer is not the books I read, not some traumatic incident that happened to me it's just the way I am. I like creepy stories. Get over it!

Neil Gaiman's Coraline, which I wrote a review for (http://www.bookbitz.co.uk/author/thomas/) and expresses my views on my love of twisted tales that are on the edge of acceptable. Children love weird stories, they love it when they read things that are deemed naughty and un-allowed (if that is a word). But most importantly children can take scary stories, they understand there is a boogeyman outside, they understand all of these things.


Children are perceptive creatures - as well as evil ones sometimes - and they learn. I believe children should learn about the cruelty of life when they're children but they learn it through evil Queens and bloodthirsty Kings, they'll find out that the real boogeyman is the man around the corner with a knife, that the nasty people are the ones who betray you and hurt you. They will learn all of this, in the end, but right now let them learn it through magic and wonder.


Here's a mini list of some great children's books out there: The Red Tree by Shaun Tan, James and the Giant Peach, The Witches, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl, Coraline and The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, Varmints by Helen Ward, The Spider and the Fly and The Spiderwick Chronicles by Tony DiTerlizzi, A Series of Unfortunate Events series by Lemony Snicket and Cirque De Freak by Darren Shan.