A genre is a class or type of literature that has a set of common characteristics
The genres of children’s literature can be grouped into four large blocks: lyric, narrative, dramatic, and didactic. Each of them in turn is subdivided:
Lyric genre: Also called the poetic genre, it is the one that achieves artistic expression through rhythmic and musical words.
Poetry: Called among us rhymes, these poetic compositions have well-defined characteristics, which differentiate them from the poem itself.
Rhymes: They are small creations, many of them of a single stanza, whose main purpose is to achieve a sonorous play of words, attractive to the child.
Tongue twisters: As their name says, these poetic creations try to introduce the child to the language using a sonorous and difficult word game. It is enough that it is musically pleasing to the ear and that it has a vocal difficulty that manages to lock the tongue of the one who pronounces it, without necessarily having a message.
Narrative genre: It is the literary form that develops the action of relating an event or feeling, using the word in prose as the means to it.
Popular or traditional tale: It is a story of anonymous origin, transmitted orally at the popular level, which varies and is enriched as it is founded on the values and culture of each human group. They generally have a simple structure, and their characters are prototypes known by children, such as kings, princesses, ogres, and witches, among others.
Myths: They are narratives that have a remote origin a religious belief around an event or a character. Myths usually have a pessimistic or tragic character. The hero is God or a being of this world that by his actions or contact with the gods, ends up having some or some of the qualities of these.
The legends: They are narrations in which their origin goes back to real human events, generally of historical or social character. Ordinarily, every legend has a hero or a character with very special characteristics, most of the time of a tragic nature.
The novel: It is known as the major genre of narrative not because it is more important, but because its treatment requires a greater complexity than that of the literary tale. The main characteristic of the novel is its length, so it traps the reader; its characters do not need to be flat and simple like those in children’s stories.
Purposes of Children’s Literature
- To entertain children with a didactic approach.
- To encourage the development of literacy, reading, and writing.
- To promote skills such as listening, conversing, giving opinions, respecting the perspective of others, and respecting human feelings, among others.
- Promote interaction and communication between children with other children and with adults.
- To instruct by delighting.
- To satisfy children’s interests, preferences uses, and needs.
- To provide new information and enrich vocabulary.
The foundation of all these genres is the imaginative function of literature, which allows children personal enrichment, knowledge of the cultural heritage of their social context, reaffirmation of their identity, and contact with different worlds, which favors the development of divergent thinking. Thus, children’s literature, mostly written by adults, is that which may or may not have the child as the protagonist, but reflects his or her emotions and experiences.