Bohater tekstów dla gimnazjalisty – dawniej i dziś

Abstract

An article entitled Characters in school children literature – now and then focuses on the questions of school pupils’ prose. The author starts with enumerating different types of texts, with a particular reference to peer models in literature. Then, she shortly discusses the construction of fictional characters in various kinds of child’s and teen’s writing. The next part of the article is devoted to the analysis of character’s attitude depending on different subjects of texts. The themes include characters in historical, adventurous and fantasy fiction. The author does not avoid difficult themes such as sexual harassment, drug addiction or prostitution. Analysing the coursebooks’ texts from the Interwar Period, the author delves into different reading matters where peer models can be found. Consequently, she draws conclusions about the popularity of particular writings. Reading tastes of Interwar Period pupils are confronted with choices of modern teenagers which leads to the conclusion that youth literature characters evolve along with their readers.