Children’s Literature Definitions

Anthropomorphism: The ascribing of human motivation, characteristics or behavior to inanimate objects, animals or natural phenomena.

Children’s literature:  literature that expresses and reaches the sensibilities and experiences of children today.

Illustrated book: a book in which the illustrations provide enhancement for the book. The illustrations are not essential to the reader’s comprehension of the book.

Narrative: a literary form that creates a story told in a setting (time and place), with characters, and action or plot, usually to accomplish an objective (the main character has a problem to solve), with events leading to a climax. Often the story is told in chronological order. When the narrative is imagined by the author it is called fiction. When the narrative is based closely upon actual happenings it is called a true story.

Picture book: a book in which the pictures extend and enhance the meaning of the book.

 Traditional Literature: literature that comes from the oral tradition.  No one knows who first told or made up these stories. There are many forms of stories from the oral tradition including jokes, riddles, fables, pourquoi (why) tales, talking beast tales, cumulative tales, folktales, tall tales, wonder or fairy tales, epics, legends, and myths. Many other types of stories exist from cultures around the world.  

to be continued