MYTHODOLOGICAL FEATURES OF CHILDREN‘S LITERATURE

Bolalar adabiyoti yosh kitobxonlarning tasavvuri, kognitiv rivojlanishi va madaniy ongini shakllantirishda hal qiluvchi rol o‘ynaydi. Miflar bolalar adabiyotining muhim tarkibiy qismi sifatida bolalarga hayotning axloq, qahramonlik va o‘zgarish kabi asosiy jihatlarini tushunishga yordam beradigan abadiy hikoyalarni taqdim etadi. Ushbu tadqiqotda bolalar adabiyotining metodologik xususiyatlari mifologiyaga urg‘u berilgan holda o‘rganilib, uning yosh kitobxonlarning psixologik va intellektual rivojlanishiga ta‘siri tahlil qilinadi. Bundan tashqari, maqolada bolalar adabiyotidagi mifologik unsurlar shaxsiy o‘zlik, tanqidiy fikrlash va hissiy intellektning shakllanishiga qanday hissa qo‘shishi muhokama qilinadi.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15079400

MYTHODOLOGICAL FEATURES OF CHILDREN’S LITERATURE Xidirova G.X. Master Degree Student, Karshi Economics and Pedagogy University Atamurodova F.T., PhD, associate professor Karshi Economics and Pedagogy University

Abstract: Children's literature plays a crucial role in shaping young readers' imagination, cognitive development, and cultural awareness. Myths, as an essential component of children's literature, offer timeless narratives that help children understand fundamental aspects of life, such as morality, heroism, and transformation. This study explores the methodological features of children's literature with a focus on mythology, analyzing its impact on young readers' psychological and intellectual development. Additionally, the paper discusses how mythological elements in children's literature contribute to the formation of personal identity, critical thinking, and emotional intelligence. Keywords: children's literature, mythology, storytelling, cognitive development, cultural heritage, hero's journey, imagination, moral lessons, mythological narratives, identity formation.

Mythology is a term that refers to a collection of Myths. The word Myth comes from the Greek Mythos, which means story. Myths are stories relating to religion and culture and come from a tradition of oral storytelling. Oral storytelling means using the spoken word to tell stories, and for thousands of years this is how stories were preserved and kept alive by people. They were often not written down, instead they were told over and over again from one generation to the next. Because of this, details of the stories slowly changed over time and different parts of them were embellished or made more fantastical with each retelling. Often they featured fantastical beasts and amazing, magical or supernatural elements. They also frequently contained a moral lesson about how to live your life. The term literature really just means things that have been written down. The word literature comes from the old Latin word Literra, which means letter, or to write. It is mostly used to describe fictional work, like stories and poems. Now that we have printed books, stories do not change over time like they used to when people relied on word of mouth and retelling stories to keep them alive. Nowadays, we can produce collections of myths relating to distinct cultures, times or religions in order to make them available to anyone who would like to read them. Mythology and Literature have now become part of the same thing, and can be easily preserved for future generations to discover, enjoy and learn from. We print literature that collects myths from cultures and religions that don’t exist in the world any more, like the myths of Norse peoples or the Romans Myth in children’s literature can open up imaginative new realms that allow child readers to escape from their mundane lives, follow and identify with a male or female hero that battles monsters and demons, before returning home victorious. It can help them to make sense of their place in the world, of birth and death, of the move from childhood to adulthood, and of good and evil. As is the case with adults, all children read differently; therefore, how children interpret myth depends on the knowledge they bring to the reading experience. Children’s literature encompasses a wide range of forms and genres: picture books, illustrated texts, novels, poems, Young Adult fiction, school stories, fantasy, folktales, and so on.

As children have had access to texts for millennia, the origins of what we now term ‘children’s literature’ are difficult to establish. Towards the end of the 17th century, authors, printers and booksellers made deliberate efforts to distinguish children’s texts from other types of literature, so that by the latter part of the 18th century children’s literature was well established as a category of its own. Specific mythologies have had a significant influence on the development of children’s literature in Ireland, Britain and America. The holdings at Trinity College Library offer a glimpse into such processes at work over several hundred years.Myth contains a poetry that transcends the limitations of history and science. Myths not only give us a sense of where we may have come from but they also provide maps for where we might want to go in life. The word myth comes from the Greek mythos meaning word or story, and usually features gods and goddesses that interact in varying ways with the mortal realm. These stories are composed of symbols that provide frameworks for how we might live, encouraging us to look beyond the restrictions of our horizons, and inspiring us to find moments of ecstasy in the mystery of our own mortality. Myths are often attempts to answer the unanswerable: how we came into being; why we fall in love; why we die; and where we might go after death. Most myths feature heroic journeys, where heroes leave their ordinary home lives, travel to the world of the supernatural, overcome obstacles, and return to their communities with new knowledge and insight, ready to enrich society. Mohammad, Jesus and Buddha are all examples of universal heroes who return with messages for humankind. Such external journeys are metaphors for an inner journey into the unconscious, a battle with light and dark, and a search for the knowledge of self. The story of the hero Gilgamesh is one of the earliest quest narratives and comes from fragments of a Babylonian epic poem most likely composed during the second millennium B.C. The story conforms to the universal hero pattern, or monomyth, as Gilgamesh – who was probably an historical figure – journeys to the underworld, fights monsters, and searches for eternal youth.