Most people believe that anything about children should be safe, innocent and kind. Parents are therefore trying hard to create a friendly and nice environment for their kids. The same situation happened in kids’ book industry. Stories in such kind of books are always describing the world around us as a friendly, safe one even though in the reality world this is not always true. That’s why the audience would feel surprised to see the news article ‘Children’s books today aren’t wild enough, says Maurice Sendak’ written by Alison Flood of the Guardian.
The topic of this news article is not as hitting as those relate to breaking news. However it does hooked me in because of the fresh and conflicted idea. That is—children’s book should reflect the way our world truly is rather than a fairy friendly one. This article is very good because it can lead the public to think and discuss about the right education for the kids. Also, it can help Maurice Sendak to sell his children’s book series.
From my point of view, I think this news article is more like an article which aims to promote Sendak’s new book. Since the only news in this article is about Sendak’s opinion towards children’s book. And quotes in this article are all from Sendak. However the way Allison Flood adopts to promote is quite good. If she is just describing how good the author’s book is then the news article would become boring. Instead, she finds a newsworthy angle about Sendak’s work and then writes a news article. The advantage of doing so is on the one hand, she promotes the new book and on the other hand, this angle can make the public think about the topic of children’s education deeply.
I agree with you, some aspects of this idea is good, but personally I do think children's books should be innocent. I don't think children should see the true face of the drty world. But it is worth to be considered, what is the future of the kids books.
ReplyDeleteGiven the era of internet, it is not difficult for them to find what the world is. However, as the real world is so complex for children to understand, they should be educated to do good things; and books would play such a role.
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