If you want children to develop a love for learning and become lifelong readers, you must introduce them to reading materials at a young age. Reading will help with developing a child’s vocabulary and their ability to read. From fairy tales to graphic novels, here are some book genres that are suitable for young readers:
Picture Books
These are books that use illustrations to tell a story. It could be accompanied by a minimal amount of text, but it could also be comprised of pictures only. The ones that have pictures only are meant for reading beginners such as young children.
Wordless children’s picture books invite children to notice patterns and infer what is going on and come up with their own version of the story. For this one, you might want to make self-published children’s books. The child would be excited to learn more from a picture book if they knew that you made it yourself. Other examples of picture books are the ones made by David Wiesner.
Fairy Tales and Fables
These stories have usually been passed down from generation to generation through oral tradition before finally being recorded in books. Aside from this, the stories usually revolve around a moral theme. Most of these have cultural and historical elements. As such, it can help children learn about cultural diversity. Examples are Cinderella, The Three Little Pigs, and The Ugly Duckling.
Graphic Novels
Although a type of comic, graphic novels are full-length works of literature. The reader needs to look at the illustrations and read the text to grasp the full meaning of a graphic novel. The graphic novel has increasingly become a popular book format among a wide range of readers, including intermediate readers to adult readers. The increase in readership applies to both fiction and non-fiction graphic novels.
In recent years, there has also been a trend of making graphic novel versions of well-loved books such as The Art of War by Sun Tzu and The Giver by Lois Lowry. Aside from the books that turned into graphic novels, other examples include Persepolis 1 and 2 by Marjane Satrapi and The Sandman by Neil Gaiman.
Classics
These pertain to books that have stood the test of time and are considered hallmarks of literature from a certain historical period. Books that have garnered excellent reviews from critics and have been published in recent memory are considered modern classics as opposed to old classics. Examples of classics are One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Little Women by Louisa May Alcott.
Historical Fiction
These are novels whose stories are set amidst a significant time in the history of a country. The characters usually live in a time of war, famine, or political unrest. Examples for this genre are The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne and All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr. The former deals with the holocaust, the genocide of European Jews during World War II, while the latter is set against the backdrop of the Nazi occupation of France.
Developing a love for reading is essential for the improvement and growth of one’s writing skills and critical thinking. The ability to critically examine facts is important for decision making. It is also a skill that can be honed through a habit reading. It is, therefore, necessary to train children to read books at a young age.
