Holiness and its relations in the light of the precious works in Western and Turkish children's literature

This study aims to examine the representation of sacred and moral values in Turkish children's literature by presenting a comparative analysis with selected masterpieces from Western children's literature. With this aim, Anatolian Tales by Ahmet Efe, Yürekdede ile Sultan by Cahit Zarifolu, and The Last Treasure in the Universe by Figen Yaman Coşar were examined. Some Western children's literature classics: Heidi, Polyanna and Little Women were evaluated. In these works, religious sensitivities, terms and features, which are directly associated with belief, were reviewed as subheadings. How the concepts of belief such as Allah, Quran, Islam, prophet, tolerance, clergyman, place of worship, gratitude, trustworthiness, truth honesty, heaven-hell are handled. Concepts like faith in God and prayer, Christianity and its sacred components, the holy book, the clergy, and the church in the Western children's literature that were examined. The addressing and understanding of these concepts in the relevant works were identified and followed by comparative analysis being carried out. The significance of clarifying how effective or ineffective Western children's literature masterpieces are in Turkish children's literature, where messages are founded on the children's minds with an ideological basis, is underlined in the conclusion. It has attempted to evaluate the relevance of children's literature products, such as cartoons and animations, in terms of transmitting our culture and belief system to future generations. The aim was to identify the various stages of the relationship between Turkish children's literature and the sacred, spanning from the past to the present. This was achieved by analyzing the subheadings related to the sacred in works of both Western and Turkish children's literature. With reference to the works that are the focus of the thesis, it discusses how, in light of all these facts, the sacred, tradition, and values in Turkish children's literature should be modernized through transformation and reinterpretation. Keywords: holiness, children's literature, religious values.