As kids, we have our favorite books. We have spent countless hours imagining – bringing – the books’ stories to life. We have thought about the characters’ physical appearances, how beautiful or ugly the setting was, and how magical or plain and ordinary the world they were in. As kids, we have considered those books as “good”. But what exactly makes a children’s book good?
While the word “good” is pretty much subjective, we all agree that a good children’s book is a book that provides enjoyment to children while still teaching them a lot of things subtly, a book that stirs children’s imagination and incites them to enjoy reading for the rest of their lives.
A good book has its criteria to be considered as good. While majority of the people think children’s books are easy because of its low word count and their beliefs of avoiding the usage of complex words for children to understand easily, it is actually not. Children’s book author has to offer a delicately complex idea of several traits and concepts to kids, in a limited number of pages, to captivate their minds and introduce them to the beauty of reading. The book must have characters that’ll leave a strong impact to children. A character that evokes strong emotions, a character kids want to laugh or cry, a character that’ll leave impressions to children even after reading the whole book. Aside from this, the book must have depth. It must have a story that’ll hold children’s interest but teaches simple concepts at the same time. Concepts like colors, numbers, letters, or lessons about friendship, love, manners and others are vital in their growing and learning stage. And in order to convey these to children, vivid illustrations and mind-expanding vocabularies are used. Beautiful illustrations draw their attention to the book and aid them to enjoy reading; also, great stories use challenging language. Poetic and catchy phrases, fun alliteration and advance vocabulary are some of the forms authors use in the book, so it is perfectly fine if your child encounters difficult words. This exposes him to expand his vocabulary and sharpen his mind to complex literature, and of course, this should be done with your help. When reading books, it’ll be more helpful for the child if his parents are present. Children tend to ask a lot of questions because this is the time when their curiosity is at its peak. So when he faces possible unexplainable part of the book, a parent is always ready to answer his queries.
Books are a crucial tool to a child’s learning. So when choosing what to read, it is important to consider the book’s content and quality, if it is credible, exciting and captivating. Also, as stressed above, it is most important to be with the child while his reading. This does not only make your relationship strong but it also helps you to inculcate more knowledge to your child and be able to know and monitor his weak areas.
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