Child Readers, Adventure Stories, and Their Impact: An Essay Analysis

This essay delves into the impact of adventure stories on child readers, focusing on thematic and character analysis. The essay examines two children's books, 'What Katy Did' and 'The Story of the Treasure Seekers,' exploring their themes, key motifs, characters, and events. It investigates issues such as gender roles, power dynamics, and the overt and covert messages conveyed to young readers. The analysis highlights the positive and negative influences of these stories on children's social and personal development, emphasizing their roles in fostering imagination, decision-making skills, and an understanding of various life situations. The essay concludes by emphasizing the importance of adventure stories in children's literature and their contribution to children's growth.

Essay
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Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ...............................................................................................................................3
TASK....................................................................................................................................................3
Brief description of the stories ........................................................................................................3
Thematic analysis of the key motifs, characters and events ...........................................................5
Issues in both the stories .................................................................................................................6
CONCLUSION ...................................................................................................................................7
References............................................................................................................................................8
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INTRODUCTION
It is believe that a love towards the reading is considering as a stepping stones for the
children to make them enthusiastic learner, confident reader, speaker and listener as well as writer.
Books are the good and great source of knowledge and when the children are reading them, it helps
them in their development (10 reasons why books are still important for child development. 2016).
In the present time, the internet and computers are considering the main source of knowledge and
entertainment for the people. Along with this, the children who are between the age of 7 to 10 are
also knowing how to use the internet, operate the phones and other gadgets etc. From these sources,
they have neglected to open the books for the reading of learning (The Importance of Books in
Child Development. 2015). So, it is parents responsibilities that they have explained the importance
of the books to their child so that they can understand that books are the one of the good educational
source of learning and development. If the children's able to understand the essentialness of books
than it will improve their imagination and they can better realize the world where they are living.
Along with this, with the help of various story, adventure etc themes based books, the social skills
can be well developed in the children and they will learn about relationship and emotions (The
Importance of Literacy and Books in Children's Development. 2016). The present study is relating
to child readers who may take overt and covert messages from the books. For this, a 7-13 years old
age group is taking into the consideration and the two children books based on the adventure themes
are also consider. The objective that will highlighted in the essay is issues in the stories related to
gender roles, race, power, social class, violence and cruelty, environment etc.
TASK
Brief description of the stories
Story one: What Katy Did
The author of What Katy Did book is Susan Coolidge. It is a series of The Katy Books and
comes under the children literature segments. This book was publishing in 1872 by Roberts
Brothers publisher. The theme of the book is based on adventure. As per the plot of the story, a 12
years old Katy lives in Burnet, a small midwestern town with her widowed father, three sisters and
two brothers (Wall and Crevecoeur, 2016). Her mother is dying four years earlier. Her father is a
very busy doctor who is always working for the long hours. Due to this, all the children's are caring
by her father sister Aunt Lzzie. She is very particular for the things and something of a unpleasant
person when the things are not working according to her. Most of the time, Katy is facing the the
anger of the aunty because of not obeying the instructions. She also dreams that she will do
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something good and grand in her life such as painting pictures of the famous people, saving the life
of drowning people etc (Mathiesen, 2013). When her mother died, she promised to her mother that
she will be a little mother to her siblings. But as like the other big sisters, she is sometimes
impatient and anger on the younger brother and sisters.
On day, her cousin Helen comes to visit Katy home, she starts to enchanted her cousin
beauty and kindness (Wardi, 2014). After the departure of Helen, she resolves to model herself on
her cousin ever afterward. In the next day, Katy quarrels with the her aunt in the morning on some
of the issue and pushes her little sister so hard that she falls down half a dozen steps. After all this
incident, she takes decisions to try out new swing in the woodshed. For this, her aunt forbidden
because according to her, the swing is unsafe because one of the supporting staples is cracking. It is
very well know by all the parents children should obey their instruction without making any
questions (Saracho and Spodek, 2010). But in the Katy, she refuse to follow the commands of aunt
and swings as high as she can and try to touch the roof. The result of this activity is staple gives way
and she falls hard on the ground. Now she is bedridden and suffering from high pain. On this
situation, Katy cousin suggests her either to learn from this condition or taking the risk of losing her
family love from rude behaviour. From this, she takes the decisions to make the room tidy and nice
to visit as well as change the behaviour of talk (Davila and Patrick, 2010). After all this incident,
she learn the lesson of how the situation has needed to be handle even if you are in pain.
Story second: The story of the treasure seekers
The author of The Story of treasure seekers is E. Nesbit and it was publishing in 1899. The
theme of the story is based on adventure and published by T. Fisher Unwin publisher in UK (Barter
and Berridge, 2011). It is a story of the six children Dora, Oswald, Dicky, Alice, Noel, and Horace
Octavius who are living with their widowed father. They are helping their father to find out the old
and parental fortune to overcome the poorness of the family. The story is narrating by considering
the children point of view so that it can be easy to develop their imagination power (Zwiers and
Morrissette, 2013). Along with this, it will able the child reader to know that a strong willpower of a
person never stop him to complete the work which he wants to do it in his life. From the different
characters of the story, the children will understand how the decisions can be take in the life when
the situations are not in the favour. The different chapters of the book and the writing style motivate
the child reader to complete the book by reading and understand the various situations (Gates,
2011).
From the above stated both the stories, it has found that it helps the child readers to consider
the positive things of the characters and adopt them in the life. Along with this, these have improved
the imagination power of the children's. Along with this, it has proven that child readers take both
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positive and negative learning from the books which are sometimes overt and covert for them, in
addition to this, the story books have also helps in social and personal development of the children
(Maynard, 2010).
Thematic analysis of the key motifs, characters and events
In the past time, there have many books written by the authors for the children and which
have based on various themes. Generally, the major key motifs selected by the writers has
adventure, fantasy, animal stories, princess, magic etc (McCabe, Fairchild, Grauerholz, Pescosolido
and Tope, 2011). For the present two child stories, the themes of both of has similar and they are
based on adventure motifs. The reason behind preparing the stories on this theme is in the past time,
there were no use of internet and other electronic gadgets. The children were only one source to
gain the knowledge which were books. By these, they were learn the things and try to implement in
the practical life (Dyke, 2010). With the help of this, the child readers was getting the good
knowledge about the various situations and that make the improvements in the different learning,
speaking, writing and presenting skills. So, the themes of both the stories have explained the
importance to the children readers about the adventure in the life. Along with this, they can learn the
various thing such as decision making, imagination power, reading skills etc. Therefore, it can be
said that the adventure based stories have revelled both overt and covert messages to the child
readers (Mitchell, 2015).
On the other hand, when a story is prepare or develop, some of the characters have taken
birth because without them, a story is never complete. Without them, the reader cannot be analyse
or determine, what is going in the tale. So, it can be said that characters are the most important part
of every narrator (Fisch and Truglio, 2014). When a reader read the story, that time he find some
imaginary beings where a tale is revolving around him. During this, he analysed and judge the
various roles of characters. On the basis of this, he takes the decision whether the narrator is good or
bad and deliver any kind of fruitful message or not. In the case of What Katy Did story, the major
characters are Katy, his aunt Lzzie and cousin Helen (Elia, van den Heuvel‐Panhuizen. and
Georgiou, 2010). Katy is a girl who is seeing the dreams with the open eyes and think that one day
she will do some thing big. But when she face the pain after falls from the swing, she realize that
she has to change the behaviour otherwise she will lose her family love and affection for always. On
the other side, Aunt Lzzie, she is very particular for then things and scolds the children a lot because
she does not understand the activities and mode swings of their. Beside this, cousin Helen, she is the
one who told the Katy to show kindness in the behaviour and be always cheerful because without it,
she will not able to fight with her pain (Smeets and Bus, 2013). So, she helps Katy to adjust to her
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illness and maintain the patience. So, from the analysis, it can be said that the Cousin Helen has
made the positive impact on the reader because from her life, the child readers can take the
inspiration to adopt kindness, cheerfulness and many other things in the life. Along with this, they
also take the lesson about helping the others when some one is in the problem or facing any kind of
issue.
But in the case of The story of treasure seekers, the role of five children assist the child
readers to learn that how to face the situations effectively and make the efforts to achieve the goals
of the work. The characters of five children also inspire them to work hard at any stage of the life.
The narrators of the tale have made the positive impression on the readers and develop an interest to
keep the reading the habit over the life (Tare, Chiong, Ganea and DeLoache, 2010).
In the case of event that happens in both the stories are have both positive and negative
impression on the child reader mind. The event occur in What Katy Did story, the character Katy
behaviour before the accident and after has inspire the readers to always carrying the behaviour of
kindness and cheerfulness to handle any type of situation in the life (Gray, 2010). Along with this,
the character of Helen and its lesson to the Katy also helps in the children to learned to help the
others. On the other hand, the event happen in The story of treasure seekers that is related to how
the bastable children search the fortune and deal with the various difficult situations. Form this, the
child readers can gain the knowledge about how to solve the problems effectively (Wolf, 2014).
From the overall, it can be said that all the stories have some overt and covert message that
help the child readers to take from a book. It assist them to learn the different things such as helping
the others in the various situation, analyse the problems, take right decisions etc. These all overt and
covert message from the tales and it has positively affect the development of the children's in both
social and personal aspects (Larson, 2010).
Issues in both the stories
In both the stories, the major issues which have commonly find out that death, bereavement
and loss, violence and cruelty. These all have explored from the reading of both the stories. In the
first story, it can be seen that the aunt of Katy has scold the children's when they were not following
the instructions of her (Bratton, 2015). It is a kind of violence and cruelty with the children and it
affect the mental and physical development of them. It makes them more rude and tough towards
the other people. On the other hand, the death of mother in both the stories have showed that not
getting the love of the mother make the children rude and they have always looking and expecting
the love and affections from the relatives and other elder people. Because of this, it has bring the
changes in the behaviour of the child and due to this, they have taken wrong decisions in their life.
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On the other hand, from both the stories, it has also determined that the narrators have faced
bereavement because of loss of the lovable people in the life (Cline and Fay, 2014). The
sorrowfulness in the life has affected the mental development of the children because it has bring
the negative thoughts in the mind by which they have always thinking the same things and does not
make concentration on the work. They have always lived in the fear that every one will left them
some day and they will spend their life alone.
CONCLUSION
From the above essay, it can be concluded that books have the major source of knowledge
by which children's gained more knowledge and learn the things. With the help of this, they have
able to bring the improvements in the different skills such as writing, reading, imagination, learning,
presentation etc. The stories have the best way to developed the habit of the reading in the children.
Because it assist them to analyse the things and make the reactions according to it. There have
different types of key motifs of the stories such as adventure,fantasy, animal based etc. All the tales
have some moral by which the child readers can learn them and apply in the life. Beside this, the
characters of the story has also made the impacts on the reader mind that may be negative or
positive. The perception of judging the narrators have varied with person to person. Along with this,
the mentioned events in the tale has also affected the behaviour of the children. Beside this, some
times, the stories have also based on the various issues such as gender roles, race, social class,
power, attitudes to money, wealth and poverty, homelessness, death, bereavement and loss, romantic
and sexual relations, violence and cruelty, the environment, etc.
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REFERENCES
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