Both of these stories depict Native Americans in a misguided way and contain misinterpretations of what actually occurred in history. This includes books such as Brother Eagle, Sister Sky (Jeffers, 1991), or The Rough-Face Girl (Martin, 1992). There are many stories, some folktales, which contain blatant stereotypes and inaccuracies about certain cultural groups. In saying this, however, when teaching students about the cultural heritage of others, one should be very careful in selecting which books to recommend to young readers. It is crucial for children to learn these values because, “developing positive attitudes toward our own culture and the cultures of others is necessary for both social and personal development” (Norton, 2010, p. Second, children’s literature provides an avenue for students to learn about their own cultural heritage and the cultures of other people.
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This strengthens students’ cognitive functions in being able to form opinions on their own and to express themselves through language in summarizing the plot of a wordless book. Students reading wordless books like A Ball for Daisy (Raschka, 2011), The Yellow Umbrella (Liu, 1987), or The Red Book (Lehmann, 2004) will be able to analyze the illustrations and develop their own dialogue for the story. Norton says that for children, “wordless picture books are excellent stimuli for oral and written language” (2010, p. Students can learn to evaluate and analyze literature, as well as summarize and hypothesize about the topic. One reader may take something completely different away from the piece of literature than the next reader, based on the two personal viewpoints and experiences. Quality literature does not tell the reader everything he/she needs to know it allows for some difference in opinion. This strengthens the cognitive developmental domain as it encourages deeper thought about literature. The first value to note is that children’s literature provides students with the opportunity to respond to literature and develop their own opinions about the topic. Children’s literature is important because it provides students with opportunities to respond to literature it gives students appreciation about their own cultural heritage as well as those of others it helps students develop emotional intelligence and creativity it nurtures growth and development of the student’s personality and social skills and it transmits important literature and themes from one generation to the next.
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Although there are countless values in exposing children to literature, Donna Norton (2010) identifies the value of literature for young people in her book Through the Eyes of a Child. Not only is reading literature important in developing cognitive skills to be able to succeed in a school or work setting, but it is valuable for other reasons as well. Educators, parents, and community members should help students develop a love and passion for reading. Giving children access to all varieties of literature is extremely important for their success.