Guiding principles for selecting fictional texts for children

If your students'reading interest is to be heightened,text recommendation must be carefully undertaken. You need to be conversant with what constitutes a good fictional appeal to different children at the various age levels.
Generally speaking, two main principles underscore literary text selection. These are:

• Be a keen judge of what constitutes good fiction
• Discover the kind of fictions that appeal to children.

Source

What constitutes good fiction for children

• The main character should be one that a child will want to identify with or one that he can recognize in real life.
• The book must have richness of detail. The book should give the reader the feeling of moving with the story in step with the characters.
• There should be a dominant theme, this theme should underline and motivate every event and action. It should appeal to the imagination of children.
• It should be true to life. This means that there should be elements of realism, honesty and integrity in developing the plot and the characters.
• It must have literary style. Children must be led to the spring fountain of good literary style early if we want them to develop interest in reading fiction (in particular).
• It must be true to type. That is to say, should not make the pretence of being a biography.

Children interest
Studies in children reading interest are not completely conclusive. The interest may vary depending on such factors as cultural background, age, level, home background, socioeconomic status of parents, sex etc, of the children. Thus we leave you to be judge of what you consider as your children's reading interest.

By now, it should be clear to you that if you must inspire your students to read, and enjoy fiction, you must as their teacher take the lead. You need to read ahead of them so that you may be able to distinguish weeds from wheat.

The students should be you read from time to time because actions speak louder than words; your practical examples will make them follow your verbal suggestions.

Thank you