Mindanao Children's Literature: The Search

When Mr. Villafania, my Children's Literature professor, asked us to make some research on local Children's Literature, I never thought that it would mean bringing home a sea of books and xerox materials to work with. Now that it has turned into a baby thesis, I am now faced with the challenges of immersing myself into a truckload of paper stacks and books!

To be honest, I really do know very little about local children's literature. My knowledge ends with the monkey and the turtle story and the many legends about how the different race were created. It is quite interesting for me to find out that there is indeed an abundance of materials for local stories, but the spreading out, the circulation of these materials is its weak point.

Now we are tasked to do exactly that - compile stories that had circulated around the Philippines so we could help strengthen awareness for children's literature. I remember when I was little, I used to glue my eyes day in and day out on the television screen because it was my only source of children stories. We have very little books at home, and since i am the only one that is truly interested in them, it actually seems surprising that I turn out to be a book - lover.

I think, somehow, what we are, what we become is part-destined and partly influenced by hereditary and environmental factors. Just like mutation - it could happen sporadically. Maybe I am a cause of some mutation from my family's genes.

Regardless though of whatever my love for literature's origin, I STILL need to finish typing and researching and reading and screening for my work. Hope I make it through!

Introductions

Writing is actually similar to falling in love - you cannot help yourself, and no matter how you desperately run away from it, you find yourself falling, succumbing to its qualms.

Needless to say, this love-hate relationship I have with writing is the reason why I am here, taking up some English major subjects in the hopes of getting a masters degree. He had won me over - writing, and though I had tried running away from it in the past, I still end up seeking him, reeling back into his trusted arms, though our future together seems bleak and unsure.

Thinking back from when I was little, it was the precise love for life that made me love literature. I have created an alternate world that would help me escape realities that so confines and limits man, not knowing  that it would in turn haunt me. For I guess life and literature are great mirrors of each other. So long as I could turn to it, I am alive and able.

Now as I readily embrace it, I feel that I am still unsure of my future with him. But when I reflect on how I could help others, especially children, to see and appreciate life like I did through literature, then I know within my heart that I am satisfied that I am choosing to finally follow the route to my own Ithaca.

This blog is a witness of my journey through Literature. I hope I make it through the end.