Literary Elements
Characteristics of Children's Literature 1
Characteristics of Children's Literature 2
Awards
Misc.
100

"Who" the story is about.

What is a character?

100

Characters are anthropomorphic animals, no magic, but has common plots that take place in a contemporary setting and focus on everyday issues.

What is Animal Fantasy?

100

A composition or verse having strong rhythm and rhyming pattern in which word images are selected and expressed to create powerful, often beautiful impressions.


What is poetry and verse?

100

This award requires that the book be published in the US in the preceding year and that the illustrator be a citizen or permanent resident of the U.S.

What is the Caldecott Medal?

100

The purpose of this is to activate the reader's prior knowledge as well as to build a scaffold for new knowledge such as vocabulary and historical or cultural setting.


What is pre-reading schema-building process?

200

The perspective from which an author presents a story.

What is the point of view?

200

A realistic fiction in a real-world setting in the historical past, with events that are partly historical but largely imaginative.

What is historical fiction?

200

Literature whose primary purpose is to inform the reader by providing an in-depth explanation of factual material.


What are informational books?

200

This award is given in recognition of individuals whose complete bodies of works have made an outstanding and lasting contribution to children's literature.


What is the Hans Christian Andersen Award?

200

The manner in which a writer expresses his or her ideas to convey a story.

What is style?

300

Where and when the story takes place.

What is the setting?

300

Stories, songs, and rhymes with unknown authorship that were passed down orally from one generation to the next before being written down.

What is traditional literature?

300

Books created to introduce children to reading through the use of board books, concept books, and alphabet books.


What are early childhood books?

300

This award is given to the author of the most distinguished contribution to literature for children published in the US during the preceding year.


What is the Newberry Medal?

300

This reader response theory states the reader's focus is on the lived-through experience of a literary work.


What is aesthetic stance?

400

The sequence of events showing characters in action.

What is the plot?

400

Fictional stories set in modern times with events that could possibly occur.


What is Contemporary Realistic Fiction?

400

Cross-cultural literature that includes books by and about people of ALL cultures.


What is culturally diverse literature?

400

This award is given to an author or illustrator who has made a lasting contribution to children's literature through his/her body of work.


What is the Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal?

400

This is developed through the author's choice of words and through the way all the elements of the story work together. This is the author's attitude toward the book's subject, characters, and readers.


What is tone?

500

The central idea, the underlying message the author is conveying to the reader.

What is the theme?
500

A fiction story with highly fanciful or supernatural elements that would be impossible in real life.


What is modern fantasy?

500

A nonfiction work describing the life-or part of the life-of a real individual or a person's own life story.


What is biography or autobiography?

500

Top ranking books chosen by students and teachers.


What is Children's Choice and Teacher's Choice?
500

This reader response theory states that what remains after the reading is completed is informational or factual and offers a solution to a problem.


What is efferent stance?

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