Raul Gutierrez Gutierrez #1

Mrs. Coley
English 308 (section 21056)
25 February, 2016

As a child, I grew up listening to different stories. My teachers and parents used to read

to me. Some books were Olivia, by Ian Falconer, Curious George, by H.A. Rey, Good Night

Moon, by Margaret Wise Brown, and The Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. My mom used to

read to me Good Night Moon by Margaret Wise Brown. She read this book to help calm me

down and help sleep. I like this book because of the rhymingwords and the colors the book has to

offer. I like the characters and I can relate the books to my life. Now, I am a little grown and

wiser, I did not know that most children books have a great impact to childrens life. There is a

reason why authors write a book. They want to offer a piece of advice by using talking animals

as their target to catch the child attention. Talking animals has a great affect in children

development stages. Erik Erikson and Jean Piaget are some psychologists who study the

development of the child. By authors using talking animals I can explain how talking animals

affects children development stages.

One Psychologist who studies the development stages in a child is Eric Erikson. He

studies the different stages of childs development. He states, children need to go through

different development stages in order to be fully develop. One of his stages is called the School

Age Child. In this stage, children go through the learning process. For example, problem solving,

building vocabulary, numbers, and listening skills are some learning process a child experience.

In one of Aesop stories, The Two Crabs, the mother was showing her daughter how to walk

straight, but the mother crab did not know she was not walking straight at all. The moral of this
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story is It is better to teach by example than by words alone, Aesop 12. As a young child, my

mother was trying to teach, how to do chores. For example, when a mother is trying to teach a

child to do chores correctly and the child has no success. By reading this story and understanding

the moral of the story, a parent wants his or her child to succeed but there is not guarantee.

According to Eric Erikson theory, children are developing social skills which lead to problems in

school. For example, a social skill may be bullying. Bullying causes emotional distress and even

suicide. This is why authors write; to offer guidance to children and parents. Authors write books

about their problems and situations that they have been through. They tell their stories by using

talking animals to catch childrens attention. Authors write stories to give advice, for example,

the crab on the fable The Two Crabs, the mother teaches the daughter how to walk. In Aesop

stories, his stories are more moral. He informs the reader about different moralities one needs to

learn in life. Children love to have their parents, grown up read to them, or just read to

themselves because children like to let their imagination run free, and see where the imagination

take them. Talking animals help the child explore their imagination. In real life, animals do not

talk to children. If people saw children talking to animals or vice versa, it will be assumed the

child is insane.

Another Psychologist who studies the childs development is Jean Piaget. He studies the

child cognitive thinking and where their cognitive level should be. He has three stages of

cognitive theory, and one the three theories are the stages of the development. In this stage,

Piaget explains how childrens thinking is developed and the children go through a series of sub-

stages called the preoperational and the concrete operational stage. Learning from right from

wrong, good behavior verses bad behavior are some examples of preoperational. Books have a
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lot to do with childrens thinking. By parents and grownups reading to children at a young age,

children develop their learning skills. Many authors write books that have a preoperational

development stage. These books are often associated with numbers, easy words, rhyming words

which are interesting and appealing to the child. Some authors use the Piaget stages, in order to

help children develop their reading skills. One book that is appealing and it fall, in the

preoperational stage is called If by Sarah Perry. This book is a great book for children

developing preoperational stage because it has easy words that a child can read. The author uses

colors, pictures, shapes, animals which are a good form for the child to learn and understand the

book. Children can use their imagination to picture the story and be able to conclude the ending

without finishing the book. Many children have big imagination as well as many adults. Without

childrens imagination, and not reading, children would not develop their comprehension and

reading skills. Knowledge is what people need to be successful in life. Animals have a great

impact on children lives.. Talking animals help the child experience life. Children can relate

themselves to the same scenarios when they see animals act a certain way as the child. Children

love animals, and seeing animal do day to day life experiences make sense and gives relief to

people and provides the will to and improve and learn from their mistakes. For example, In

Beatrix Potter story, Peter Rabbit is told by his mother not to go to the garden, but does it

anyway. In real life, some children are told not to do something and they end up doing it, which

leads to consequences.

In conclusion, talking animals, in the fable, do affect the developmental stages. By

children starting to reading at a young age, and parents and love ones reading to their children,

there is an impact on the development in the childrens lives. As psychologist Erikson and Piaget
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study the childs development it shows how children go through several stages. Initiative vs.

Quilt, Industry vs. Inferiority, Preoperational and Concrete Operational are some stages Erikson

and Piaget study. Talking animals and the authors who writes books on them, have a great impact

because they give advice on life. The art of telling the stories bring these animals to life. The way

these animals talk like in the fable and the story, can relate to them. I believe talking animals will

continue to appeal to kids in an age of technology because now in the 21st century is all about

technology, we can go on the internet and still be able to find these books that have been written

for over a hundred years. Peter Rabbit, by Beatrix Potter, was written in 1902; now, in the 2016,

we are still reading about Peter Rabbit because the appealing and the meaning behind the story,

still relate to daily lives. I can remember when I was a young boy, my mom used to read Good

Night Moon by Margaret Wise Brown, now more than thirty years old, it still exists. Imagine

books that are being written in the 2000s, with the evolution in technology, future generations

being born, are going to be able to read books written from the 1900s in the year 3000s.

Work Cited
Aesop. Aesops Fables. Dover Publications, INC. New York, 1994.

McLeod, S. A. (2013). Erik Erikson. Retrieved from www.simplypsychology.org/Erik-Erikson.html

McLeod, S. A. (2015). Jean Piaget. Retrieved from www.simplypsychology.org/piaget.html

Perry, Sarah. IFThe J. Paul Museum and Childrens Library Press, California, 1995

Potter, Beatrix. Peter Rabbit and Eleven Other Favorite Tales. Dover Publications, INC. New

York, 1994.