Children's Literature: Need to Touch Children's Emotions

Many generations of children have grown up with the fairy tales of writer Hans Christian Andersen such as: The Little Match Girl, The Ugly Duckling, The Little Mermaid, The Emperor's New Clothes... Along with that are works written for children by many other world- famous writers such as: Antoine de Saint-Exupéry with The Little Prince ; Lewis Carroll with Alice in Wonderland ; JK Rowling with Harry Potter ; Roald Dahl with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory ; Hector Malot with Sans Famille... In Vietnam, young audiences are also immersed in the creative world of writers: To Hoai, Tran Dang Khoa, Nguyen Nhat Anh, Vo Quang, Phung Quan, Pham Ho...

Poet Tran Dang Khoa interacts with children of Khanh Hoa .

When discussing children's literature, writers, poets, and critics all agree that it is very difficult to write and to have a successful work is even more difficult. Recently, within the framework of the 2025 writing camp for authors writing for children organized by the Department of Performing Arts (under the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism) in Khanh Hoa, poet Tran Dang Khoa - Vice President of the Vietnam Writers Association shared: "Children's literature is different from literary works for adults, first of all in that the main recipients are children. This requires each work to express the innocence of children and the writer must be truly impartial in writing to be able to bring the work to children. When writing for children, authors need to avoid borrowing children to convey something to adults. Some people even mistakenly think that children are purely innocent and lack a view of their psychological changes and their interest in the world around them. Any literary work that wants to have a long-lasting vitality, first of all, it must be good, then it needs to be comprehensive, both meeting the needs of children and look at the noble values so that when they are young and when they grow up they will still want to read.

In recent times, in order to encourage authors to actively write for children, the authorities and professional social organizations have paid much attention. Organizing writing camps is also a way to gather famous writers, many of whom have published books and many authors whose works have been printed in textbooks, which is very necessary. Through this, authors have the opportunity to meet, exchange and discuss directly with each other. Also through writing camps, we have the opportunity to look back at the team of writers for children in the country today. According to author Duong Thi Thu Ha: “Literary works for children need to express humorous and funny language, and if the writer catches the trend and knows how to exploit and use children's everyday language, it will help them to exchange and share stories about teachers, school, friends, family, life... in it. The writing style for children needs to be concise and succinct to constantly change the colors in the story. This will be the factor that keeps young readers in the story longer. From there, help each child find the values of goodness, humanity, solidarity, knowing how to help others and find their own image in it."

Poet Bao Ngoc has many poems selected to be included in textbooks such as: Story of building a house, Pink sunshine (Vietnamese for grade 3, volume 1 - Creative Horizon book series); Color drawing, Harvesting words on the mountain (Vietnamese for grade 4, volume 1 - Connecting knowledge with life book series); Natural house (Vietnamese for grade 5, volume 2 - Kite book series)... Her poems often have pure, innocent language, rich in images, helping children develop their imagination. Participating in this writing camp, poet Bao Ngoc found inspiration about the space, culture, and people of Khanh Hoa. For her, writing for children requires flexibility in grasping the psychology of the age group. For preschool children, writers should pay attention to nurturing the beautiful, pure things of their mother tongue. From there, bring them to the natural world, explore the world around them. For older children, what touches their hearts must have a strong appeal, closer to the new rhythm of life. That depends on the responsibility and strength of each author when choosing their own subject to write about...

The world of literary works for children today has undergone a clear transformation. In addition to traditional themes such as: family affection, school, friendship, love of nature..., many works have delved into social issues. If in the previous period, children's characters often appeared in the image of young, brave heroes, rich in revolutionary spirit (Kim Dong, Luom...), now children's characters are associated with the spirit of everyday life, innocent personality. However, the core thing for literary works to enter the world of children is still to exude pure beauty, rich in emotions, suitable for the psychology of the age.

FAMILY

Source: https://baokhanhhoa.vn/van-hoa/202511/van-hoc-danh-cho-thieu-nhi-can-cham-vao-cam-xuc-tre-tho-46452ad/