Role of Reality in Childrens Literature

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Role of Reality in Children’s Literature – Week 5 ENG/290 2014 Joan Cannon-Dicks Role of Reality in Children’s Literature – Week 5 Living in Calaveras County give a child an understanding of what times used to be like during the Gold Rush. As a child living in Calaveras County, it was possible to see the history with reenactments and exploring the many towns where miners and writers once stood. The best known writer to have written about Calaveras County is Mark Twain. Children are taught about his writing and how the Jumping Frog Jubilee came to be because of his stories. It has been told that Mark Twain would sit up on the hills in Angels Camp to find inspiration for his writing. Although specific books are not mentioned, a child can escape into the books Mark Twain wrote and feel they are Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn. Having the grown with stories about Mark Twain the historical fiction book this paper will discuss The Adventures of Huckleberry Fin and how it relates to history, family and social values, literary elements and structural devices. Historical Realism “Historical realism attempts to recreate a reality of the past, to capture the milieu of a time gone by” (Russell, p. 245, 2009). Although Mark Twain wrote the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn years after the Emancipation Proclamation the story is written in a realism that deals with racism, slavery, education, and society. Mark Twain writes about a young boy who is dealt with difficult situations and faced with moral conflicts that go against the rest of society. The portrayal of Huckleberry Finn through Mark Twain’s writings makes the reader invasion a poor, uneducated boy who runs away from an abusive drunk father and finds a runaway slave who becomes his best friend. Through their travels on the Mississippi River Huckleberry Finn and Jim find themselves escaping trouble along

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