My grandmother never read stories to me as I now read to my grandchildren. But she told us stories galore, of the lives of the Sikh gurus that were a part of her world. My knowledge and interest in Sikhism stems from those moments of storytelling togetherness.

When I moved from oral culture to the written word, I devoured children’s books that my parents were only too happy to provide. The language too shifted from Punjabi to English. Reading was sheer joy, an enraptured act of escapism. Didacticism is an integral part of children’s literature but I was unaware of that. Subliminally, however, children do absorb many of the moral lessons from the books.

What we read as children forms who we become and provides our first perceptions of the world. In my course, Introduction to Children’s Literature, we examine how the books children read – from Aesop’s Fables to Amar Chitra Katha comics and the Harry Potter series – shape their outlook and emotional development. Illustrations and use of rhymes are part of the joy of children’s books. The appeal of Cat in the Hat or Abol Tabol is mainly because of its nonsensical rhymes and the eyecatching illustrations. Children don’t necessarily know why, for instance, they love Goodnight Moon. But we learn that it is the repetition, the sonorous rhymes and the gentle remembrance of the loved objects in the room that make it so popular.

In class, our academic involvement with children’s stories recall and transport us to a world of magic, humour, colour, fantasia, and entertainment rather than the moral lessons which now seem ubiquitous and the real purpose of these works. Brazilian educationist, Paulo Freire said that it is through language that we are acculturated into the world: “We apprehend the world through the word.” Children’s literature acculturates us

into specific cultures and societies with their own respective moral values and norms.

In our course, I was interested to see that a majority of the students had been brought up on Western children’s literature. Enid Blyton and all the boarding school stories were hot favourites. They were not so familiar with Indian stories other than epics like the Ramayana and Mahabharat which were familiar as stories told orally, read in comics, seen in performances, cartoons, and television serials. The mediums through which children learn have expanded dramatically. Interestingly many of the Bangla-speaking students lit up at the talk of Satyajit Ray’s Feluda thrillers and knew other Bangla literature but the rest of the class apprehended the world through Famous Five and Secret Seven series. The cultural and linguistic divide was evident

A literature meant for children is neither written by children nor chosen by them. It comes to children mediated by adults. But, what then do we study specifically in children’s literature? We use many of the same criteria as for any book, but the authorial intent is quite different. Fairy tales particularly can be read at multiple levels. They open up a world where children are allowed to explore their innermost fears – “Where the Wild Things Are”- fear even of their parents and other adults – to develop the tools to act them out and resolve them in their imagination. Writers like Bruno Bettelheim and Jack Zipes insist that fairy tales are “necessary” for children because they open up a world where children can project their hidden fears through the fairy tales.

“Fairy tales give children the opportunity to understand inner conflicts which they experience in the phases of their spiritual and intellectual development, and to act these out and resolve them in their imagination,” Bruno Bettelheim.

While traditional fairy tales are full of violence and fear, modern stories tend to tread more lightly on topics that might be traumatic for the young. This well-meaning sensitivity may not be productive. It is through stories that children acquire the psychological tools to cope with real-life fear – because they have already encountered it vicariously in the make-believe world of books. Fear and the fantastic go hand in hand to enthrall and educate the young.

Geetanjali Singh Chanda is Professor of English. Her interests include gender and religion studies along with children’s writing.