Television and Media--A Way to Teach Children's Stories

There is a growing trend in America to recreate popular books into movies and television shows. This is the case with Harry Potter, Ella Enchanted, Matilda, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Hobbit, and the list could go on and on. I believe that recreating traditional stories can have a detrimental effect on the minds of youth if they use the media's version to replace the literature. It is now more popular than ever to spend an afternoon watching the television instead of exploring the outdoors or devouring a book, which drains the world of imagination out of the minds of kids.

Children discover it overwhelmingly easy to watch a movie and receive the same satisfaction and information as it is to read a book. When I was young, I would often find it much harder to read a book if I had already seen the movie because I knew the outcome of the novel, which removed all excitement and tension from the story. Children are fed inadequate information through movies, but are not motivated to discover the actual truth.

Not only are movies a popular means of retelling children's literature, but also television. Due to the production of programs such as PBS, stories such as Arthur and Clifford are played on TV every afternoon, which subsequently draws children to watch shows about their favorite character rather than spending the time reading. If we wish to motivate children to read more, we must remove the distraction of television that we place in their life and encourage them to read a book, rather than taking the way out.