QUT LCN617 Assignment 2: Children's Literature Analysis and Review

This report presents a critical analysis of Tony Wilson's children's book, "The Cow Tripped Over the Moon," examining its suitability for inclusion in a children's library. The report begins with a bibliographic citation and plot summary, followed by an exploration of the context for potential inclusion, specifically targeting the toddler fairy tale section. A SWOT analysis is conducted to assess the book's literary strengths (humorous illustrations, simple language, and themes of perseverance and friendship) and weaknesses (limited length, lack of detailed background, and unclear character portrayals). Opportunities for the text include fostering a love for reading, inspiring children with disabilities, and promoting values of perseverance and helpfulness. Potential threats are also considered, such as the creation of unrealistic expectations and potential for bullying. Existing reviews are analyzed, highlighting positive reception from playgroups and schools. The report concludes with a determination of the text's potential for library inclusion, considering its ability to engage young readers and impart valuable life lessons. The book's charming illustrations and positive messages make it a suitable choice for bedtime or recreational reading, offering inspirational content often lacking in fairy tales.

Running head: CHILDREN’S LITERATURE: CRITICISM AND ANALYSIS
Children’s Literature: Criticism and Analysis
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

1CHILDRENS LITERATURE: CRITICISM AND ANALYSIS
Introduction
Before any text is included in a children library, it is necessary for a teacher or
librarian to consider many factors to decide whether the text is suitable for the children and
whether it should be included in the library collection (Gubar, 2013). Here, the rationale for
why the story of The Cow Tripped over the Moon written by Tony Wilson, will be analysed.
In the first part, the bibliographical citation and text summery will be presented to create a
background for the analysis of the text. In the next part the context of the text inclusion will
be discussed. In the following part a SWOT analysis of the text will be carried out from a
literary as well as promotional perspective. The strengths and weaknesses will be evaluated
from the literary perspective while the opportunities and threats posed by the text will
evaluated to determine the possible results of inclusion of the text in libraries. Additionally,
public reviews and opinions will be recorded and analysed to determine how the text has
been read and received by different groups of people. Finally, all these information as well as
analysis will be taken into account to determine the potential of the text for inclusion in the
library.
Bibliographic Citation:
Wilson, T. (2015). The Cow Tripped over the Moon. Scholastic.
Text Summery
The Cow Tripped over the Moon is a story written for children by Tony Wilson. This
story was published in the year 2015 by Scholastic. This book is an illustrated book as it is
meant for kids. The beautiful illustrations are done by Laura Wood. The background of the
story is based on the popular nursery rhyme Hey Diddle Diddle where the incident of a cow

2CHILDRENS LITERATURE: CRITICISM AND ANALYSIS
jumping over a moon is recorded. It is a six line poem that relates the incident as a funny one.
Wilson took inspiration from the story and starts off with the same incident where he says
that the story of a cow jumping over the moon is well known to everybody. It happened in
one fine, cloudless night. The author then proposes his opinion that the previous poem fails to
mention the struggle and perseverance that the cow had to go through before he finally
managed to cross the moon (Nikolajeva, 2015). The book records the first seven unsuccessful
and the final eighth successful attempt that it took. The first attempt takes place at 9:17 P.M.
at night. On her first attempt, the cow failed spectacularly and landed flat on her face. In her
attempt to jump to the moon, she tripped over the dog, Rover and fell. Thus, on her first
attempt she did not make it even close to space. The second attempt is taken at 9:28 P.M. The
cow took off for the moon. She was nearing the moon and suddenly hit an Air balloon. Her
second attempt too, failed. She keeps on attempting to jump over the moon even after seven
times of failure. Finally, in her eighth attempt, during the dawn, the associates of the cow, the
spoon, the fiddle, the cat, the dog all helped her to achieve her mission. The story, in a playful
manner teach the readers the perseverance it takes to achieve something big. Reaching or
jumping over a moon is no small feat and the cow achieves that by sheer will power and
perseverance (Stephens & McCallum, 2013).
Context
The Cow Tripped over the Moon by Tony Wilson is proposed to be included in a
Children Library. Specifically, it should be included in the toddler fairy tale section for the
age 1-6 years. In children libraries, different kinds of children come. They have different
backgrounds cultures and abilities. Sometimes, parents might bring specially-abled children
to libraries (Byrne, 2013). A story that talks about perseverance and hard work, of never
giving up and how friends can help one in the journey, will give them the strength and drive

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to work harder and retain hope that the impossible can be achieved with determination. This
is a kind of text that is funny entertaining and humorous for both the parents and children.
Strengths
According to Ramdhani, Ramdhani and Amin, (2014) the strength and weakness
along with the opportunity and threat analysis is necessary to determine the potential of a
text. While analysing a text, the key factors that are needed to be considered are plot and
structure, the point of view and the style of characterization (Cortazzi, 2014). In case of
children’s literature, these aspects are projected in a much more vivid manner. For children
literature, the presentation of a book, how the illustrations look, the colours and the print of
text is extremely important. In most cases, children literature contains colourful pictures, the
text is printed on illustrations to grab the attention of the children (Vasquez, 2014). The
words are sometimes non-sense and are made up. The ideas presented are exaggerated and
fairy tale like (Roche, 2014). This text shows all these characteristics. The illustrations made
by Laura Wood is extremely interesting and funny. The characters have been drawn
beautifully and humorous elements from the text has been represented. The text in itself has
many humorous contexts. The attempts and failings of the Cow to jump over the moon
creates elements for laughter for the children. The language of the text is simple and has the
rhythm that will appeal the children. While choosing a text for libraries, the teachers or
librarians consider the fact that whether the literature is appropriate for a certain age group
and what they will learn from this text (Merga & Roni, 2017). Children belonging to the
toddler age group will learn the importance of dreaming big and pursuing that with
perseverance. They will understand that even if the aim looks impossible, there is nothing
hard work and perseverance cannot do. Another strength of the text is the context of
friendship. At the end, the success of the Cow was somewhat dependent upon the friends that

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she had. With their cheer and inspiration, she was able to reach her destination. It will teach
the young readers the importance of friendship and their support.
Weakness
The limited length of the text can be considered as a weakness of the text. In most
cases, literature have more detailed description of actions (Ramdhani, Ramdhani & Amin,
2014). Though the text is catchy and appealing to read, a child would not be able to
understand the implications of it that easily. In Wilson’s case, he was inspired to write this
story for his four year old son who suffers cerebral palsy. It is difficult for the child to
perform any motor function without rigorous practice. This story is meant to inspire children
to try repeatedly till they become successful. The mention of the Cow’s friends are there
throughout the text, but how they help her in her each attempt is not very clear. Only in the
last attempt it becomes clear that she was being helped by her friends all along. The account
in itself is very short and thus, inclusion of a little details would have taught the children
some language other than the moral that it wants to project. Another problem is the lack of
the background from which the text has been borrowed. It has its origin from an age old
nursery rhyme where the incident of the Cow jumping over the moon has been presented.
Children that are not aware of that poem, children belonging to non-western culture will not
be able to understand the context of the text. The characters of the Cow’s friends are not clear
as well. The dog is seen to be laughing at her at one instance which might confuse children of
that age.
Opportunities
The text has much potential for the inclusion in the library. When a teacher or
librarian selects any text for a library intended for the children of the toddler age group, they

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have keep in mind that this creates an interest among these children to read more stories in
future (Chen, 2014). They will also have to decide what effects the story will have on the
children’s mind. The inspiration of the story, the author’s son, shows that perseverance in
himself that the author propagates through the text. It will give students who are struggling
with learning disadvantages a hope that they will be able to cope up with proper training and
encouragement. In many cases, children suffering from any disability, give up at some point
of time, thinking that they do not have the ability to perform better. This text also gives the
teachers and the parents the opportunity to learn how children should be encouraged and to
what extent a child can go if encouraged properly (Beckett, 2013). Without proper
inspiration, many will become social recluse and bitter towards people in general. The idea
that with a little help of people around them, they can achieve the impossible will make them
enthusiastic to accept help from their friends, parents and teachers. It will also teach all the
children to be more helpful towards others. The text is appropriate for bedtime or recreational
read as it has the ability to engage the readers as well as teach those values and morals. Along
with them, it has the inspirational factor that many fairy tales lack. It is written in the form of
a fairy tale but has much more realistic ideas at its basis, thus making the text extremely
suitable for the children and the teachers as well.
Threats
There are some threats to the inclusion of the text, though minimal. In texts like this
which deals with positive ideas and emotions, threats generally do not appear as such. In this
text, the problem might arise if through the stories children build impossible hopes and
dreams (McPake, Plowman, & Stephen, 2013). Failing to reach those goals can make them
prone to anger or depression. They might become too dependent on the help of the people
around them thinking that without their offered help they would not be able to achieve their

6CHILDRENS LITERATURE: CRITICISM AND ANALYSIS
goals. Another threat is that the children will naturally expect helpful attitude from their
peers. That is not the case always. In many cases, other children of the same age group has
bullying nature or aggressive behaviour that might confuse the child, make him shaky and
scared. This kind of incident may lead to their seclusion from their peers and friends, reduced
communication with teachers and parents, as they are the ones that have taught him about the
morals of the story, fear from meeting new people and many more such complications.
Response on Existing review
Readers from different profession and channels have shown their love and
appreciation for the text. Personnel from different playschools and nursery schools. The
Australian has also reviewed the book and has considered the book as a charming adaptation
of a nursery rhyme (Powell, 2014). Many of the playschools consider the text as a perfect
piece for children. They have reviewed that the text is much loved by the children and parents
alike. The liveliness and the elements of fun gives the toddlers a great reading time and
makes them want more. It is seen unanimously from the reviews that the message of
Perseverance that Wilson wants to send has been well received and appreciated by all. Story
Mama has reviewed the book with an overall 4.4 rating, where it scored full rating for being
engaging and positive message carrier. The illustrations done by Wood has also been much
appreciated as the success of a children’s book largely depends on the pictures and colours
that are used in the book (Yokota & Teale, 2014). It is the presence of these qualities that
make the book suitable for digital representation. Digital representation will also help
children with visual impairments and motor skill problems to hear the texts easily. For other
students too, digital representation will make it much more interesting (Ribeiro et al., 2017).

7CHILDRENS LITERATURE: CRITICISM AND ANALYSIS
Conclusion
From the above discussion, it is can be easily concluded that, the strengths of the story
far outweighs the weaknesses as does the opportunity over the threats. A story like this is
needed in the children literature genre and is much appreciated by most readers. The children
love this kind of rhyme stories that capture their attention. The teachers too are prone to
select these as a recreational text as children will remain hooked to the stories. In the age of
digitalization, the importance of digitization of stories cannot be rejected. Thus, the inclusion
of The Cow tripped over the Moon is worthy of inclusion in the library as well as a
production for digital media.

8CHILDRENS LITERATURE: CRITICISM AND ANALYSIS
References
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adults. Routledge.
Byrne, A. (2013). What factors influence the decisions of parents of children with special
educational needs when choosing a secondary educational provision for their child at
change of phase from primary to secondary education? A review of the
literature. Journal of Research in Special Educational Needs, 13(2), 129-141.
Chen, M. L. (2014). Teaching English as a foreign language through literature. Theory and
practice in language studies, 4(2), 232.
Cortazzi, M. (2014). Narrative analysis. Routledge.
Gubar, M. (2013). Risky Business: Talking about Children in Children's Literature
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