Jerry Spinelli's Outsiders and its Relevance in Children's Literature

Seminar paper from the year 2006 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 1.3, University of Duisburg-Essen, language: English, abstract: The main aim of children's literature is to be readable for young people, to be amusing, exciting, to have a good story and to make readers enjoy it. Some books do not only fulfill this aim but also have a message. Young children should learn something important by reading those books. Those books are relevant for children's literature because the children enjoy learning when the story is good and interesting. But what makes a book a relevant book? Is it only the message, only the story, the characters or all of those? This essay will show if Jerry Spinelli's books Stargirl, Loser and Wringer do have a relevance in children's literature and why by characterizing the protagonists and by finding out what Spinelli's messages are. Those three books have been chosen because the protagonists are outsiders and therefore the books are of comparable topics.