Monday 27 / April / 2026
Muscat: Children’s literature is among the most vital literary genres, playing an essential role in raising and educating young generations, developing their skills and enriching their cultural horizons. It nurtures a child’s intellectual and linguistic abilities, awakening their imagination and their awareness of the world around them. No longer confined to simple tales, this literature has evolved into an integrated cognitive and aesthetic project, blending word and image to meet children’s needs for both entertainment and learning.
Specialists in children’s literature emphasise that a successful children’s book is not measured by the quantity of information it delivers, but by its power to provoke curiosity, cultivate critical thinking, and offer a complete reading experience that stays in a child’s memory and accompanies them through different stages of life.
Dr. Amira Ali Al Balushi, a writer of children’s literature, said that a children’s book becomes a true treasure not simply because it contains facts, but because it is made with a conscious spirit and a genuine love for the small details that many might overlook — details that leave the deepest mark on a child’s heart. A book carefully designed in text, illustration and presentation does not offer passing content to be consumed and forgotten, she explained. Instead, it builds a close relationship between the child and the word, the child and the image, and the child and the world around them. Its real secret, she said, is that it does not compete with the flood of information by weight of volume, but surpasses it through depth and through its ability to remain in memory and in the soul.
She recalled Antoine de Saint‑Exupéry’s words: “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” A true children’s book, she said, speaks not only to the eye but to the heart and the mind together. That is why a beautiful book stands as living proof that creativity born of the smallest details is the only kind that can be passed from one generation to the next.
When children’s texts are written with sincerity and awareness, she noted, they can plant in a child the seeds of lasting thought — rooted in curiosity, reflection, questioning and the search for meaning. A child does not always need ready answers so much as a text that opens a window for thought and offers a chance to see the world with questioning and wondering eyes.
Questioning is the beginning of all real knowledge, she added, and this is what children’s literature should cultivate in young hearts — making it a tool for building a mind that does not settle for the fast consumption of facts, but learns to reflect on them, test them and rediscover them in its own way. This, she said, is the essence of sustainable knowledge: raising a child who does not merely memorise the world, but thinks about it.
Writing for children is one of the most demanding forms of writing, Dr. Al Balushi continued. It needs language that is both clear and richly meaningful, that respects a child’s intelligence and touches their imagination, along with a deep idea delivered with simplicity and honesty. A successful writer in this field does not write from a position of preaching, she stressed, but from a space close to the child — understanding their wonder, addressing their curiosity, and presenting ideas in light language that carries deep impact. Writing for children is not about simplifying an idea, but about condensing it into a purer, warmer form.
Writing children’s literature is an emotional architecture, said Dr. Azza Hilal Al Shaibani, a children’s author. Through this architecture, the writer shapes the text to balance cultural identity with artistic wonder — wonder that lets a child’s imagination roam freely and expand its horizons. This balance, she noted, is one of the field’s greatest challenges. Cultural identity is not a set of rigid history lessons to be recounted, but meanings a child absorbs while immersed in reading. Achieving this depends on presenting heritage in a way that makes the child feel it as part of a living reality, fostering belonging, deepening connection to identity, and inspiring rediscovery through a contemporary lens.
The “imprint”, she explained, is the complementary element of this emotional architecture. It presents the work so as to offer visual wonder through the aesthetic design of illustrations, colours and layout — innovative yet in harmony with the text’s cultural content. The imprint’s impact deepens when symbolic dimensions are added, allowing the child to develop visual intelligence. Through this, a child’s eyes read what words have not written, awakening thought and interpretation, sending the imagination on infinite journeys through realms of wonder, and igniting curiosity about the meaning hidden beneath the text.
A writer of children’s literature must strive to create texts that transcend generations, Dr. Al Shaibani said — works that a child reads today remain just as suitable for another child twenty years later. This is possible only when a text has qualities that make it timeless, foremost among them being rooted in universal human values shared across generations: love, fear, friendship and loss.
Surprise in the narrative, unexpected flights of imagination, and visual images that stay in a child’s mind — a forest, a journey, a box, a lock — help embed the reading experience in memory, encouraging the child to return to the book and discover new meanings with each reading, she said. The language of the text also plays a key role in making a book timeless: a beautiful linguistic rhythm, light rhetorical imagery and memorable phrasing that becomes part of the child’s own memory. A text’s openness to interpretation, she added, allows each generation to interpret it according to its own reality, rereading the work through its own value system and life experiences. This gives the text a renewing quality and enduring power, keeping its meanings open to multiple possibilities — never confined to a single interpretation, but expanding to keep pace with the transformations of time and place.
Maryam Ali Al Qamshouei, an illustrator and publisher of children’s books, said that illustrations form the very foundation of a children’s book. They tell the details of the story and follow its events. For this reason, publishers place great importance on illustrations and how they serve the narrative text. Pictures in children’s stories also help sharpen a child’s visual awareness, expand their imagination and broaden their understanding.
Illustrations in children’s books can convey a complete message, she explained, provided that the illustrator and publisher recognise that a child is an intelligent “visual reader” who reads lines and spaces just as they read words. Successful illustrations are those that respect a child’s intelligence and integrate fully with the text, she added.
The illustrations that truly captivate a child are those completely different from the bright, glowing images children constantly see on electronic screens, Al Qamshouei said. That is why illustrators use hand‑made techniques such as watercolours, collage, charcoal and ink — even when working with digital programmes. Such illustrations contain elements like unconventional perspective, symbolism, stimulating ambiguity, and details filled with human emotion through colour and expressive lines. These qualities touch a child’s inner world and stay in their memory long after they have grown up.
In an age of pervasive screens and artificial intelligence (AI), making children’s books today is both a real challenge and an artistic adventure, she noted. The contemporary child has a sophisticated visual taste, so it is necessary to create a visual and psychological language whose power to amaze outshines the glitter of devices, and to rebuild a tangible, sensory relationship between the child and the printed page in this virtual age.
Dr. Amer Mohammed Al Aysari, Assistant Professor of Early Childhood Education at Sultan Qaboos University (SQU) and a specialist in children’s literature, spoke about the capacity of children’s books to offer sustainable cultural content that mirrors a society’s dedication to forming the consciousness of its children. The process of cultural education does not stop at any particular age, he said, yet the first steps in building a person’s cultural foundation begin in childhood. The early cultural attention a child receives will positively shape their future life. A child is inherently social, influenced by those around them, and their cognitive and cultural store can be built through diverse educational means that keep pace with the evolution of knowledge, the communications revolution and the easy availability of information. Institutions therefore bear a heavy responsibility to provide age‑appropriate culture that preserves a child’s cultural identity. The more coordinated and harmonised efforts are in values and methods, the more a child’s cultural upbringing becomes a source of creative energy and flourishing for their own life and for their community.
The children’s book is the first herald of cultural upbringing, where imagination and creativity blend with language, Dr. Al Aysari said. Knowledge is presented to the child in a simple, engaging way. Through stories and the expressive pictures and illustrations they contain, a child begins to discover the world around them and build the first vocabulary that will lead them step by step to express their ideas and develop a friendly relationship with reading — one that will stay with them throughout their life. Their thoughts, attitudes and knowledge grow gradually, eventually reflecting on their achievements and their effectiveness in their country and community.
He pointed out that the role of culture for children is evident in how literary, narrative and poetic content actively contributes to preparing a fertile environment for a child’s intellectual and cognitive growth, thereby providing a setting they can interact with and be absorbed into. Writers for children should therefore not overlook the need to diversify content and its forms — knowledge, arts, literature, skills, and behavioural and religious values that a child can understand. These are at the core of a child’s needs for shaping their personality, enabling them to guide their own behaviour and become an active member of their society. A conscious child is a source of optimism and hope as they grow, their mind strengthening and their stature firming, becoming a builder for themselves, their family and their nation.
Children’s books must contribute to shaping a child’s culture and enhance their ability to understand the environment and society around them, Dr. Al Aysari stressed. Especially for young children and adolescents, their books must be age‑appropriate — food for their minds and souls. Such a blend can only be achieved by those who understand its inner workings and are passionately familiar with the world of childhood, its characteristics and its requirements. They can then offer children stories and tales that develop their aesthetic taste, along with songs whose words, meanings and melodies delight their ears. It is as if, with words, they are drawing the world every child dreams of. They must also leave room for children’s talents and creativity to emerge and be discovered, through engaging expressions and phrases that sharpen their minds — marked by the quality of “easy but not facile”: simple and clear in wording on one hand, yet strong, fresh and serious on the other.
The method of selecting themes and ideas for children may differ from one writer to another, depending on their experience in understanding the child and their needs, and how closely they connect with the child’s worlds and interests, said Ahmed Nasser Al Rashdi, a writer and storyteller specialising in children’s literature. Among the most important criteria is that the writer be familiar with the child’s age level and the different stages of development — early childhood, middle childhood and late childhood. The writer must ask: Am I writing for a child aged one to three years? For a child aged four to six? Seven to nine? Or ten and above? Each stage has its own mental, linguistic and psychological characteristics that must be taken into account when writing.
A child aged one to three has specific mental and linguistic characteristics in terms of how many words they can pronounce or understand, as well as the subjects they need to learn about — such as the names of animals and plants, Al Rashdi explained. Older children, especially those aged eleven and above, tend to prefer themes of imagination, adventure and mystery. A writer’s familiarity with these criteria makes it easier to select story themes that suit the child, encouraging them to buy those books when visiting a library or when accompanied by their parents to a book fair.
The wise writer knows that the text and theme are not everything, Al Rashdi said. The visual elements, or illustrations in the fullest sense, complete the process of conveying the idea and bringing it closer to the child in an engaging way. Sometimes the idea may be beautiful, but the illustrator’s lack of experience with that particular stage of childhood can weaken the work’s appeal, so it is not accepted by the child or their family. He stressed the importance of the writer being aware of the reading level appropriate for each age stage in terms of suitable language and style. A writer might aim a theme at a seven‑year‑old, yet use language and style more suited to adolescents of eleven and above, which weakens the child’s engagement with the text.
