Abstract
AN INVESTIGATION ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF ANIMAL CHARACTERS IN PRESCHOOL CHILDREN'S BOOKS
In this study, it is aimed to determine how personalized animal characters in children’s literature in preschool children and character traits are developed.
This study was carried out with the case study and was structured with embedded single case study. The research objects of the study consist of 33 children’s books which include personalized animal characters, which were written by native authors in the narrative genre for pre-school period selected by criterion sampling
The children's books in the study were accepted as documents and the analysis process was carried out with document analysis. Taking the indicators determined by Sever (2010) and Lukens (2007) into consideration, in accordance with the opinions of field experts, a form was developed. Later, all the personalized animal characters included in research objects were subjected to content analysis in accordance with their characteristics and development ways. The data categorized by content analysis were interpreted by descriptive analysis.
The findings of the study show that the animal characters examined were mostly developed through speech, main characters were more open and dynamic, and the side characters were closed and static.
Keywords
Pre-school children’s literature, animal characters, character traits, ways of character development