The history of the development of Chinese and foreign children's literature is constantly telling the fact that children's literature has a natural blood relationship with children's education since its birth.
As an important independent branch of literature, the category of children's literature includes two aspects: one is literary and the other is children's. The biggest difference between children's literature and other literature is that its basic audience is children. Therefore, writers must consider children's psychological development and understanding ability when writing. Chen Bochui clearly pointed out in 1956: "An accomplished writer who can stand with children, be good at listening with children's ears, seeing with children's eyes, and especially understanding with children's hearts will inevitably write works that children can understand and enjoy." It can be seen that it is the inevitable requirement and the greatest feature of children's literature to create works from the standpoint of children according to their age characteristics.
In the long-term educational practice, human beings have long discovered that literature is a good means of education. Children's literature, which belongs to a certain country, a certain ethnic group or a certain region, mostly comes into being because it obeys the needs of educational purposes. The preface to Five Books, an ancient collection of Indian fairy tales and fables that may have originated in 1 century BC, says: In ancient times, there was a king who had three stupid sons. The king asked his prime minister to train three sons, but there was nothing the prime minister could do. Later, an elderly brahmin was willing to undertake this educational task and promised to teach three princes the ability to manage the country within six months. He used animal stories that can attract children as teaching materials and achieved great results. Therefore, he compiled this story book that has been handed down through the ages. /kloc-In the 7th century, Feneron, known as "the first French writer to write for children", wrote "The Adventures of Telemarcos" in order to educate his student Prince Sun Bugoni. ..... It can be said that the promotion of children's literature is linked with children's education, and children's literature is separated from the matrix of great literature because of the needs of children's education and becomes independent. Therefore, children's literature should actually be "growth literature" and can be defined as "literature that pays attention to, shows and helps children grow up".
Second, the importance of children's literature to children's spiritual construction
The ultimate goal of children's literature is to cultivate and guide children who are not mature physically, psychologically and socially to become sound social people. It plays a very important role in children's educational activities.
1. Children's literature bears the heavy responsibility of cultivating children to establish correct ethical concepts.
In terms of social and moral values, children's literature conveys basic human virtues, such as honesty, courage, cooperation and tolerance. When children are attracted by the literary images in their works, they will have strong emotions. They will subconsciously understand the relationship between people from the standpoint of different role images, experience all kinds of moral emotions, and make moral judgments under the guidance of their works. Children's moral cognition, moral emotion and moral judgment when they appreciate and accept children's literary works will have an impact on their ethical concepts and behaviors. The Education of Love by Italian Amikaz has become a masterpiece of children's literature in the world. 100 years has been loved by children all over the world, because it has created a series of excellent juvenile images, such as the little scribe Sellyew, who is hardworking and tenacious, and Kyle, who has traveled 3,000 miles to find his mother, which has had a great influence on children. In Mao Dun's novella "Young Printers" written in 1930s, the protagonist Zhao Yuansheng is a typical image of a poor teenager who is studious, capable, hard-working and self-reliant, setting an example for a large number of children who changed from students to child laborers to make a living independently. Zoya, Shula and Timur in the Soviet Union, Hai Wa, Yulai and Zhang Gazi in China and other artistic images guide children to the right life path. Zhang Tianyi's three vivid images: playful Luo, lazy Wang Bao and brainless Zhao Dahua, teach children to develop good study habits and living habits from the opposite side. Therefore, we say that children's literature is love literature, which originates from human love and expectation, and love is the most basic aesthetic element of children's literature; Children's literature is good literature, and taking goodness as beauty is the most basic aesthetic feature of children's literature. The world's classic children's literature has eternal charm because it conveys a profound philosophy of love and has the ideological magic of attracting people to be good.
2. The mission of children's literature is to let children know about society, life and nature.
Children's literature, like adult literature, reflects social life as a whole. It contains rich ideological content and subjective opinions of writers, as well as a lot of social, historical and natural science knowledge. It can not only lead children to distant countries where their young footprints are difficult to reach, but also increase their knowledge and broaden their horizons; It can also promote their philosophical thinking about life and let them know how to treat society and life; It can stimulate children's enthusiastic concern for society and the whole world, thus deepening their knowledge and understanding of life. For example, the fairy tale "Riding a Goose" by Lagrov, a famous Swedish woman writer, not only tells fairy tales, but also incorporates a lot of knowledge about Swedish geography, myths and legends, cultural relics and historical sites, industrial and agricultural production and so on. It not only allows Swedish children to learn about their motherland and increase their knowledge from this wonderful window, but also lets children all over the world know about this beautiful country.
Compared with other literature, children's literature has one advantage, that is, it can arouse children's strong cognitive interest. Cognitive psychology holds that "when the original cognitive structure of an individual is moderately inconsistent with the novel objects from the external environment, the individual will have the psychology of' surprise',' doubt',' confusion' and' contradiction', thus stimulating the individual to explore." Because children are limited by knowledge and know little about the outside world, this is precisely the driving force of children's cognition. Children's literature can lead young readers into the world they want to explore with its vivid images, interesting plots and lively brushstrokes. Exposing the unknown world to young readers with strong curiosity and thirst for knowledge can greatly stimulate their interest in observing and understanding the world. This interest can encourage children to actively explore new things and new worlds and cultivate new ways for children to observe and understand the world. Bohr, the founder of quantum mechanics and Danish scientist, once told People magazine that Lagrov's fairy tale "Riding a Goose" had a profound influence on his scientific path.
3. Children's literature has the bounden duty of cultivating children to discover, feel and create beauty.
"Human beings should give their children the most precious things", which is the principle put forward by the United Nations. The "most precious" thing for children is of course that beauty comes first. "Education begins with establishing beauty, and establishing beauty begins with children". As one of the highest forms of human aesthetics, literature should especially follow the law of beauty. All literature should be beautiful. Without beauty, there is no literature. It should illuminate mankind with the brilliance of beauty and influence people's hearts in the form of beauty. Mr. Cao Wenxuan believes that "beauty and thought have the same power, even greater than the power of thought". In his own literary creation, he spared no effort to water a good flower and cultivate people's hearts with its beauty. Children's literature not only has the aesthetic characteristics of general literature, but also has its unique aesthetic characteristics. Guo Moruo described this wonderful artistic world vividly in My Views on Children's Literature: "Children's literature should be as clear as the autumn sky and the moon, and never like a blank sheet of paper. Children's literature should be as bright as a crystal ball, but never like a piece of glass. " This description vividly illustrates the unique aesthetic charm of children's literature. Children's literature is both a true reflection of life and an aesthetic reflection of life. Under the guidance of progressive world outlook, children's literature writers vividly summarize and refine the rough, scattered and natural beauty in life into stronger, fuller and more ideal artistic beauty, and express the beauty of life, nature and art through their works. For example, The Daughter of the Sea written by Andersen and The Happy Prince written by Wilde. Although the protagonist's ending is tragic, the feelings they arouse in the readers' hearts are getting more and more pure and noble, so that readers can enjoy the beauty. Similarly, ugliness in life can also be transformed into an artistic image with aesthetic value in a writer's pen. For example, The Emperor's New Clothes can make readers laugh without answering ugliness, and at the same time, they are more fascinated by the power of beauty in life. Excellent writers of children's literature always vividly describe the real face of social life in a certain period with beautiful forms and high artistic skills suitable for children, which makes their works have strong artistic appeal, makes children feel emotional and get spiritual pleasure and satisfaction, and at the same time affects children's thoughts and feelings, cultivates children's healthy interest in life and develops children's ability to appreciate and create beauty.
Children's literature has the task of shaping children's sound personality.
As another window for children to know the world, children's literature can make up for some defects of children's personality.
First of all, children's literature is conducive to improving children's emotional world. Mr. Zhang Zhilu, a famous writer and deputy director of Children's Literature Committee, believes that "lack of emotion" is a big problem for children now. Mr. Cao Wenxuan also thinks that "emotional weakening is a worrying problem for children in today's society", and they all think it has something to do with children's reading. Mr. Cao Wenxuan also thinks: "To solve this problem, almost any way and any department will not work. The best cure for the diseases of this century may be literature. Literature is almost the only good medicine. " Excellent children's literature works are always good at showing the poetic beauty between people and between people and the world in a delicate style, thus giving children a strong emotional experience. For example, the fairy tale Dumbo Living on the Roof by Lin Gelun, a famous Swedish woman writer, tells an interesting story about the interaction between Carlson, a Dumbo living on the roof, and Swanson's youngest son. The little guy is an ordinary boy who feels lonely. His father, mother, brother and sister are all very busy. His family had no time to play with him, and no one noticed his feelings. So the flying Carlson appeared. Dumbo fills the loneliness in the little guy's heart and brings him endless happiness. The description of the pure friendship between the two little friends, the description of the little guy's yearning for family friendship, and the emotional compensation for the children who lack emotional communication in real life make them realize the beautiful feelings between people. Similar works include Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Winnie the Pooh, Joy on Earth, The Adventures of Onions, The Wizard of Oz and so on, all of which are representative works in this field. Emotional edification is a delicious food dedicated to children by excellent children's literature works.
Secondly, children's literature plays an active role in establishing children's self-confidence, cultivating children's self-awareness and cultivating children's adventurous and enterprising character. For example, the long fairy tale "Pippi Long Socks" created a fairy tale image of a 9-year-old orphan girl, Pippi. She is smart, naughty and fierce, and often plays pranks. Her independence and self-confidence, her personality and her daring to take risks all show that this is a suppressed and wildest embodiment of children's fantasy. This fairy-tale image gives vent to the repressed desires of children in reality. Feel Pippi's self-confidence, self-reliance, self-improvement, courage and adventure, and children in life will also feel excited and encouraged. Similar works include Stevenson's Treasure Island, Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Immersed in such excellent works, children's personality qualities such as self-confidence, self-consciousness and enterprising spirit in reality will be positively hinted, thus stimulating, cultivating and strengthening these personality traits of children.
Thirdly, children's literature plays an active role in cultivating children's courage and perseverance to overcome difficulties. Perseverance is an important guarantee for children to maintain lasting attention and persistent exploration spirit. Some excellent children's literature works can encourage and develop these precious qualities of children. For example, in Cao Wenxuan's bildungsroman "Castle", two "little people" who went upstream and withstood the blow of life were portrayed. The author's enthusiastic description of the hero's masculine qualities such as pioneering and brave fighting life and his praise of their perseverance and indomitable spirit are undoubtedly of great significance to overcome the shortcomings of children's weakness and meekness.
To sum up, children's literature is like nutrition for children's spiritual growth, and we should fully realize the importance of children's literature for children's spiritual construction. If excellent children's literature works can be widely popularized and read, it must not be a dream for children's literature to guide children to get close to literature and improve their spirit.