Chapter 7 of our book lists the benefits of reading realistic fiction as well as the characteristics found in good realistic fiction. "Good realistic fiction portrays the real world in all its context. Life is full of ups and downs; it can be funny, painful, tumultuous, joyful and distressing."
Realistic fiction is personally one of my most favorite genre's to use when talking about and introducing topics to young children. It is an entertaining way to give students ways to relate to the real world and can be a gateway into exploring the lives of others.This can be a great learning tool as it exposes them to something they may encounter at one time or another I recently finished reading The Talented Clementine by Sara Pennypacker as part of my annotated bibliography. In this story Clementine is distressed because her class will be putting on a talent show and she feels she has no talent. The story explores the many talents of Clementine and shows students that while all talents aren't stage worthy we are all unique and have something special to offer to the world. This personally is a story that I can relate to, having come from a family of artists I don't have much artistic ability myself. This does not mean that I lack talent it just means I don't have talent in the artistic sense. Realistic fiction can also help students make sense of difficult situations. For example in Katherine Paterson's Bridge to Teribitha, the main character deals with and attempts to make sense of the death of a close friend. After doing some reading about Katherine Paterson, I discovered that she wrote this story to help her deal with and make sense of the death of one of her friend.
I feel that using realistic fiction is a great way to get students to share their feelings and experiences. If students hear a story that the can relate to they may be more open to writing about or discussing their own experiences and feelings.
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