My nine Greek sisters and I inspire and guide mortals in the arts. My field is children's literature, and yes, there is a chip on my shoulder because of it. Do not mistake me for an angel because of the wings; they are Monarch butterfly wings, functional for getting around and symbolic of the miraculous transformation you can achieve if you heed my counsel. I am not a cute gimmick invented by Berthe Amoss because she has run out of ideas. I am as real as the child within or the right side of the brain. Berthe has given me graphic form because I know how to do things, and I tell it like it is in children's literature.
Sometimes we forget that we are all former children, and the first books we saw influenced our perception of the world and our place in it. Early books helped us find meaning in life, and the illustrations in those books were the first graphic art we saw. Who among us did not embellish a beloved book with crayoned affection? And who, even now, is not grateful for a book that gave us wings to fly into the stormy sky of adolescence?
Children's books are recognized as a basic tool in early education and, of course, are necessary to school libraries, all of which provide a great business opportunity for publishers. But it is those very thriving areas that have created the great divide between what we call English literature and children's literature in the American culture and in our universities where standards are set. Books written for adults are taught in departments of English, while those written for children are relegated to departments of education and library science. The great divide widens and spills over into writers' conferences and book selling exhibitions.
However, there is no real division separating children's literature and English literature; it is an artificial barrier, but it is growing and becoming more menacing to children's books which are not perceived as tools for education. The more children's books gain national attention as essential components to reading and literacy programs, the more they lose their identity as part of the body of English literature, so necessary to the curriculum in a liberal arts education.
At Tulane University, even after Katrina, there is still a children's literature program called Trial Balloons, composed of eighty members, on and off campus: students, faculty, published writers and would-be writers, illustrators and artists, teachers and librarians, lawyers, all united by a passion for children's books. The goals of the program are to show that children's literature is a component of English literature, that the best of book illustration is fine art, and that through children's books, life's lessons are taught and illiteracy conquered.
Heather LaGuardia, a former Newcomb College student and member of Trial Balloons said, "My friends have asked me why a medical school bound student would want to spend her time reading, writing and illustrating books for children. I tell them that I wouldn't even be going off to medical school without the influence of some of the books I read as a child. If life is a journey, those first few books were my maps."
Sheila Stroup, another Trial Balloons member and columnist for The Times-Picayune of New Orleans, writes, "I could fill pages with the names of children's books that are important to me.I can't imagine a university of stature NOT having a children's literature course in its English curriculum."
As we strive to leave no child behind when it comes to learning and we rely on books written for children to teach reading skills and inform young minds, let's remember the books that guided our coming of age. In his classic book, The Uses of Enchantment, Bruno Bettelheim says, "Today as in times past, the most important task in raising a child is helping him to find meaning in life. Regarding this task, nothing is more important than the impact of parents and others who take care of the child; second in importance is our cultural heritage.When children are young it is literature that carries such information best."
