An Investigation of Children’s and Young Adult Books in the Context of Critical Thinking Skills Acquisition

Abstract

With the technological advancements and declining connection of children and young adults with written works, getting their interest to qualified books has become a significant issue. Such children and young adult books should avoid an instructional tone and make them reflect on various events through the characters without compromising the literary value. This study is intended to focus on an in-depth investigation of 2016 best-seller children and young adult books in the context of critical thinking skills acquisition. Thirty children's and young adult books in the genre of short stories and novels selected based on the data from three internet websites constitute the data set to the content analysis performed in this study. “Theme” is used as a context unit. Frequency, percentage, and density values are utilized in the evaluation of subcategories. Among the children and young adult books examined in the course of this study, The Little Prience, One Peach and a Thousand Peaches, and Yaşasın Ç Harfi Kardeşliği are found to be the books having largest density values in this order while the books titled Heart, Bir Küçük Osmancık Vardı, and Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Third Wheel (Book 7) are the books with the least density values. This study points out the importance of a detailed examination of the books intended to be read by children and young adults from critical thinking perspective.