Everlasting children's literature.

did you ever notice that the pieces that seem to make it on the classics list are pieces that are both valuable to the child and the parent? Here we muse why that is.

It had been a very long time since I read Kipling's "Just So Stories". It is nice to come back to these stories as an adult with a newfound appreciation for them. I remember as a child finding them to be entertaining and extremely silly. Now as an adult I find them just as entertaining and equally as silly but I am able to see the moral of the story far more clearly. Perhaps the fact that adults can enjoy these books as well is what keeps them around for over 100 years.

My friend has a seventeen-month-old daughter. One day while I was over visiting she had a program on television called the "Wiggles". I got a chance to watch a few moments of it and really it wasn't so bad. Now I am not saying that I am going to rush out and buy the DVD set even though I have no children but if I am there babysitting or when I have kids I wouldn't mind turning on the show.

For a children's book to become a classic it takes two parts. One, it has to be enjoyable to the child. If a child finds it boring or too much like the adult world then it is not going to be something they want to read again and again. Secondly the parents have to be able to enjoy reading it (or in some cases watching it) to the their child. If they aren't going to want to read it to their child then the child will coerced into forgetting the book and moved on to another piece that meets the criteria.

This is why writing for children is so difficult. In the majority of other genres you have one audience. One group of people that like the type of book that you have written whether it be mystery, romance etc. They buy the book because they like that genre. With children's literature you have a two-part audience. You are writing to a group of people who realty aren't old enough to reach the counter at a bookstore so you have to appeal to the ones that do reach the counter...the adults also known as the parents.

This is what makes a children's book classic. The adults enjoyed it so much as a child that they come back to read it to their children and they find some deeper intrinsic value that they didn't see when they were a child. Kipling is able to accomplish this in his work. Very few children's literature authors are able to do what he has done.