There are so many theories for analyzing children and children's literature in both MacLeod's "Children's Literature for a New Nation" and Sanchez-Eppler's introduction to Dependent States: The Child's Part in Nineteenth-Centure American Culture, that it is difficult to aim at just five of them. However, I have managed to pick the ones that "stuck out in my mind" the most.

According to MacLeod, children's literature must have a didactic function to it. The literature is for entertaining the children audience however it also must teach a lesson or have a hidden meaning of some sort. The most prominent lesson or hidden message seems to be that of morality. MacLeod states that "all Americans of the period [agree] that a high level of individual morality was indispensable if the promise of the nation's future was to be fulfilled" (p 89).

This leads me into my next theory being that the "children are our future," which is a comment that I tend to hear a lot, from my parents, grandparents, teachers, even our president. This topic is mentioned a lot in many different literature pieces. MacLeod points out that there are "connections between an anxious, unsettled society and a didactic, moralizing literature for children" (p 97). By teaching morality, obedience, responisibility, etc., the children can learn and become better citizens and therefore the future has a chance of being greater than it is currently.

However, this thinking then brings up the topic of dependency. Sanchez-Eppler states that "childhood is not only culturally, but also legally and biologically understood as a period of dependency" (p xvi). Children depend on adults for care, instruction, and direction in their lives. On the opposite side of the coin, are adults depending on children to lead better lives so that the future for them and the adults will be greater? Are adults living through the children the way they would if they could change their past? As I read Sanchez-Eppler's introduction, I couldn't help but ask myself these questions and I must agree, this is what it seems like to me. Adults teach through their own experiences because they depend on the children to learn, make better lives, and then allow the adults to depend on them for quality of life as they get older.

On another note, adults in society tend to pride themselves on children being the future for all even though they "consistently [fail] to support the daily needs of children, underfunding schools, dismantling welfare programs, refusing to grant children's voices as assured rolde in the institutions that most directly impact their lives, and generally disregarding the rampant juvenilization of poverty" (p xv) according to Sanchez-Eppler. Society wants the children to better the future but is not providing the necessary steps, needs, etc. for the children to do so.

Lastly, I thought it was interesting what Sanchez-Eppler brings up the topic that "there are as yet no archives of children's writings" (p xvii). We have been talking about children and childhood in the literature that was written for mostly a child audience and in some cases an adult audience BUT what about the actual writings of a child about their own experiences, thoughts, etc.? How are we to know exactly what the child is learning unless we know what the child thinks? Of course we can always see by their actions but to read what a child puts on paper is to really get into their mind and understand childhood once again and then be able to better understand the liturature written for the child audience.