Popular+Types+of+Realistic+Fiction+(Animal+Stories,+Humorous+Stories,+Sports+Stories,+Mysteries,+School+Stories)

What are some popular types of realistic fiction (consider types such as animal stories, humorous stories, sports stories, mysteries, school stories, etc)?
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//By Pat Henderson// Many of us tend to categorize popular realistic fiction into a few descriptions – animal, humor, mystery, school, sports, family, or life issues. This labeling, to imply that the label is all the book is about, according to Huck, Hepler, and Hickman, is a disservice to both the book and reader. A well-crafted book often defies labels, and contains many memorable themes and features.

Some stories can be typed in multiple ways. __Bridge to Terabithia__ by Katherine Paterson is about friendship/belonging as well as death. __A Week In the Woods__ by Andrew Clements is about belonging, survival, and maturity. __The Wanderer__ by Sharon Creech is about family/identity and maturity. __Heat__ by Mike Lupica is about sports and family.

This labeling can be helpful with classroom discussions, but tends to disregard some important themes. Instead of applying a single label, we could use multiple names as a type of cross-labeling, with hopes of capturing all the relevant events and issues that make the work so popular with children.

Mary McGuinness Like other genres, realistic fiction includes a variety of literature. A realistic story could be labeled an adventure story, mystery, animal story, sports story, humorous story, or romance because of its content (wadsworthmedia. p. 193). Many books for our youngest readers focus on stories about friendship, family, and school. For much younger children these are themes that they can connect with. For a bit older children, series books such as Henry and Mudge and Ramona Quimbly target their interests. Series books may comprise animal, sports, humorous, adventure, mystery, romance, and other kinds of stories as well, but their distinguishing feature is that their main characters appear in several books rather than in just one. The best of these books contain memorable, vivid characters that readers remember from book to book (wadworthmedia. p. 194). As children get older they are looking for characters and themes that they can connect with. According to Norton (p. 362) the word realistic does not mean that the story is true however, it means only that the story could have happened. Children understand this and that’s what makes realistic stories so fascinating, entertaining, and valuable to them.

Through the Eyes of a Child: An Introduction to Children’s Literature by Donna E. Norton, 7th ed. Pearson: NJ. 2007.

www.wadsworthmedia.com/marketing/sample_chapters/0534555446_ch07.pdf