Does Fantasy Fiction Really Have Bad Effects on Children?

These days there are many arguments about bad effects of fantasy fiction. Especially parents are concerned about their children. They think there are no good effects of fantasy fiction because nobody showed or told them anything about it. They just know that fantasy fiction is harmful to their kids but there are so many good effects of it. Fantasy fiction has so many benefits like it makes you understand what's good and what's bad teaches you life long lessons and allows you to escape your problems for a little while.

Before kids read fantasy books, they normally don't know what's wrong and what's right but when they read, they begin to understand it. In the article Jane Yolen (2008) writes, "Without evil and the knowledge of its possible continuance there can be no hope for redemption... the working through evil in order to come at last to the light."So we can understand that bad is the mirror in which good is reflected (Fitzgerald, 2008). Children must see the evil so they can understand what's good and what's bad. For example in fantasy fiction books, there are always good and bad characters. In Harry Potter books Harry Potter is the good character and Voldemort is the evil one. Kids who read Harry Potter are willing to act like Harry, not Voldemort because good always wins.

Reading fantasy fiction teaches lessons to people that they can use it in their real lives. It's so great that you can learn something and enjoy it at the same time. Especially children are filling up their minds with useless things. They can learn thing useful in order not to do that. Like Yolen (2008) says "Stories about magic often teach the reader that one must make choices and accept the consequences for those choices." These are life lessons that it will continue as long as you live. I believe this is the most important benefit of fantasy fiction.

In real life all of us deal with so many problems and there are so many things in our minds. Thanks to the fantasy fiction we can escape our problems for a little while. You can be stressed or maybe you had a terrible day but at night when you go to bed and start reading a book, you leave all your problems behind and enjoy the action or romance in the book. There is no other thing that much relaxing in all world. The best part is no matter how rich or poor you are, you can always buy a book that takes your mind of the things. There are so many fantasy fiction books. I'm sure anybody can find something for themselves.

To sum up, fantasy has so many benefits. It helps you in life on so many ways. Especially when we are young, we have so much capacity to learn new things. If we learn good things, we will be good people. So we have to give our children good education so they can give it to the next generation.