It is difficult to separate morals from literature, as both of them follow the same path. Since the beginning of literature in all its various forms, it has been clear and evident that morals enhancement comes at the top of literature’s list of priorities and goals, as literature is intended to support and promote everything that exalts morals. The vast majority of literature creators are keen that their works support all rules of moral education in different and diverse societies throughout the ages. In fact, there are some people who have departed from this rule, but the vast majority of them take moral principles into consideration during the different stages of their creativity if this is the case of literature in its overall and general form that addresses all categories, cultures and races.
What about children's literature which is mainly based on a moral principle and cares, enhances, seeks and supports everything related to raising and recommending the morals of child and developing them in a smooth, simple, easy and natural manner, away from exaggeration and reliance on the approach of guidance and education?
Children’s literature is based on a simple and expressive language that uses common words and terms, but they are selected in a proper manner that complements its main goal, which is to recommend morals. In fact, there is no charter that forces the creators of children’s literature to adhere to morality in the creative works they provide and present, but the whole matter is related to criticism for everything presented by such literature if it goes beyond the moral boundaries and transgresses the rules of commitment and decency.
The content provided by the creator is considered the moral element, which represents his backbone on which he relies and the firm foundation in which he is interested while building all the elements of his story, starting from his dependence on characters and heroes that necessarily and basically show the right behavior that is consistent with the principles of society. In addition, the events of his story must comply with a gradual natural sequence that is consistent and in line with the principles of life and does not deviate from the ordinary aspects. Even when the creator unleashes his imagination and flies away from reality, he is basically linked to many fixed moral rules and it is difficult for him to deviate from or transcend them.
Children’s literature is characterized by being the only one in which all of its creators worldwide, despite their different cultures, share their moral commitment in spite of the varying and gradual forms of commitment, but in general it is rare that transgression occurs, because all of them realize that their stories, novels and even their poems directed to the child are nothing but rules and foundations that support the family and society in building strong and morally decent generations.
The moral terms adopted by children’s literature are various. A literature creator sometimes exalts one of good traits such as sincerity, honesty, courage, altruism, cooperation, and others and he does not explicitly declare his adoption of a moral principle, which he defends and presents through the events of his story, but this is evident through the language used and the plot on which he relies in the sequence of events till he reaches a satisfactory and rational output, through which he raises one of the moral values, even if this does not appear explicitly.
In many cases, the author is not satisfied with presenting a single moral principle through his story, as some of them try to show a comprehensive and complete set of situations that support one of the general or prevalent moral rules in the environment, to which the creator belongs. The author even seeks to discard a bad trait in an easy and splendid presentation manner.
Throughout its long history, children’s literature has gone through many stages of development and it was affected by temporal situations and various events. The form and methods of expression, ways of narration, type of plot, manners of writing and presentation differed, but all of them did not in any way affect its backbone and main goal, which is to recommend morals and elevate them, since morals are still the dominant and controlling aspect in thought, attitude and goal of all creators of children's literature.
