Republic of the Philippines

Pangasinan State University

Lingayen, Pangasinan

EL 111Children and Adolescent Literature

Children's literature or juvenile literature includes stories, books, magazines, and poems that are
enjoyed by children.
Modern children's literature is classified in two different ways: genre or the intended age of the reader.
Children's literature can be traced to stories and songs, part of a wider oral tradition, that adults shared
with children before publishing existed. The development of early children's literature, before printing
was invented, is difficult to trace. Even after printing became widespread, many classic children's tales
were originally created for adults and later adapted for a younger audience. Since the 15 th century much
literature has been aimed specifically at children, often with a moral or religious message.
The late 19th and early 20th centuries are known as the "Golden Age of Children's Literature" because
many classic children's books were published then.
Definition
Children's Literature can be broadly defined as the body of written works and accompanying
illustrations produced in order to entertain or instruct young people.
The genre encompasses a wide range of works, including acknowledged classics of world literature,
picture books and easy-to-read stories written exclusively for children, and fairy tales, lullabies, fables,
folk songs, and other primarily orally transmitted materials or more specifically defined as fiction, non-
fiction, poetry, or drama intended for and used by children and young people.
History
Early children's literature consisted of spoken stories, songs, and poems that were used to educate,
instruct, and entertain children. It was only in the 18th century, with the development of the concept
of childhood, that a separate genre of children's literature began to emerge, with its own divisions,
expectations, and canon. The earliest of these books were educational books, books on conduct, and
simple ABCs—often decorated with animals, plants, and anthropomorphic letters.
In 1962, French historian Philippe Ariès argues in his book Centuries of Childhood that the modern
concept of childhood only emerged in recent times. He explains that children were in the past not
considered as greatly different from adults and were not given significantly different treatment.

Early-modern Europe
During the 17th century, the concept of childhood began to emerge in Europe. Adults saw children as
separate beings, innocent and in need of protection and training by the adults around them.
The English philosopher John Locke developed his theory of the tabula rasa in his 1690 An Essay
Concerning Human Understanding. In Locke's philosophy, tabula rasa was the theory that the (human)
mind is at birth a "blank slate" without rules for processing data, and that data is added and rules for
processing are formed solely by one's sensory experiences. A corollary of this doctrine was that the
mind of the child was born blank and that it was the duty of the parents to imbue the child with correct
notions. Locke himself emphasized the importance of providing children with "easy pleasant books" to
develop their minds r
In the 19th century, a few children's titles became famous as classroom reading texts. Among these were
the fables of Aesop and Jean de la Fontaine and Charles Perraults's 1697 Tales of Mother Goose.
The popularity of these texts led to the creation of a number of 19th century fantasy and fairy tales for
children which featured magic objects and talking animals.
Another influence on this shift in attitudes came from Puritanism, which stressed the importance of
individual salvation. Puritans were concerned with the spiritual welfare of their children, and there was
a large growth in the publication of "good godly books" aimed squarely at children. Some of the most
popular works were by James Janeway, but the most enduring book from this movement, still read
today, especially in modernised versions, is The Pilgrim's Progress (1678) by John Bunyan.
Chapbooks, pocket-sized pamphlets that were often folded instead of being stitched, were published in
Britain; illustrated by woodblock printing, these inexpensive booklets reprinted popular ballads,
historical re-tellings, and folk tales. Though not specifically published for children at this time, young
people enjoyed the booklets as well. Johanna Bradley says, in From Chapbooks to Plum Cake, that
chapbooks kept imaginative stories from being lost to readers under the strict Puritan influence of the
time.
Hornbooks also appeared in England during this time, teaching children basic information such as the
alphabet and the Lord's Prayer. These were brought from England to the American colonies in the
mid-17th century.
The first such book was a catechism for children written in verse by the Puritan John Cotton. Known
as Spiritual Milk for Boston Babes, it was published in 1646, appearing both in England and Boston.
Another early book, The New England Primer, was in print by 1691 and used in schools for 100 years.
The primer begins with "The young Infant's or Child's morning Prayer" and evening prayer. It then
shows the alphabet, vowels, consonants, double letters, and syllables before providing a religious rhyme
of the alphabet, beginning "In Adam's fall We sinned all...", and continues through the alphabet. It also
contained religious maxims, acronyms, spelling help and other educational items, all decorated by
woodcuts.
In 1634, the Pentamerone from Italy became the first major published collection of European folk tales.
Charles Perrault began recording fairy tales in France, publishing his first collection in 1697. They
were not well received among the French literary society, who saw them as only fit for old people and
children. In 1658, Jan Ámos Comenius in Bohemia published the informative illustrated Orbis Pictus,
for children under six learning to read. It is considered to be the first picture book produced specifically
for children.
The first Danish children's book was The Child's Mirror by Niels Bredal in 1568, an adaptation of a
Courtesy book by the Dutch priest Erasmus. A Pretty and Splendid Maiden's Mirror, an adaptation of a
German book for young women, became the first Swedish children's book upon its 1591 publication.
Sweden published fables and a children's magazine by 1766.
In Italy, Giovanni Francesco Straparola released The Facetious Nights of Straparola in the 1550s.
Called the first European storybook to contain fairy-tales, it eventually had 75 separate stories and
written for an adult audience. Giulio Cesare Croce also borrowed from stories children enjoyed for his
books.
Russia's earliest children's books, primers, appeared in the late sixteenth century. An early example is
ABC-Book, an alphabet book published by Ivan Fyodorov in 1571.
The first picture book published in Russia, Karion Istomin's The Illustrated Primer, appeared in 1694.
Peter the Great's interest in modernizing his country through Westernization helped Western children's
literature dominate the field through the eighteenth century.
Catherine the Great wrote allegories for children, and during her reign, Nikolai Novikov started the first
juvenile magazine in Russia.
The modern children's book emerged in mid-18th-century England. A growing polite middle-class and
the influence of Lockean theories of childhood innocence combined to create the beginnings of
childhood as a concept.
A Little Pretty Pocket-Book, written and published by John Newbery, is widely considered the first
modern children's book, published in 1744. It was a landmark as the first children's publication aimed at
giving enjoyment to children, containing a mixture of rhymes, picture stories and games for pleasure.
Newbery believed that play was a better enticement to children's good behavior than physical discipline,
and the child was to record his or her behavior daily.
The book was child–sized with a brightly colored cover that appealed to children — something new in
the publishing industry. Known as gift books, these early books became the precursors to the toy books
popular in the 19th century. Newbery was also adept at marketing this new genre. According to the
journal The Lion and the Unicorn, "Newbery's genius was in developing the fairly new product
category, children's books, through his frequent advertisements... and his clever ploy of introducing
additional titles and products into the body of his children's books."
The improvement in the quality of books for children and the diversity of topics he published helped
make Newbery the leading producer of children's books in his time. He published his own books as well
as those by authors such as Samuel Johnson and Oliver Goldsmith; the latter may have written The
History of Little Goody Two-Shoes, Newbery's most popular book.
Another philosopher who influenced the development of children's literature was Jean-Jacques
Rousseau, who argued that children should be allowed to develop naturally and joyously. His idea of
appealing to a children's natural interests took hold among writers for children. Popular examples
included Thomas Day's The History of Sandford and Merton, four volumes that embody Rousseau's
theories. Furthermore, Maria and Richard Lovell Edgeworth's Practical Education: The History of
Harry and Lucy (1780) urged children to teach themselves.
Rousseau's ideas also had great influence in Germany, especially on German Philanthropism, a
movement concerned with reforming both education and literature for children. Its founder, Johann
Bernhard Basedow, authored Elementarwerk as a popular textbook for children that included many
illustrations by Daniel Chodowiecki. Another follower, Joachim Heinrich Campe, created an
adaptation of Robinson Crusoe that went into over 100 printings. He became Germany's "outstanding
and most modern" writer for children. According to Hans-Heino Ewers in The International Companion
Encyclopedia of Children's Literature, "It can be argued that from this time, the history of European
children's literature was largely written in Germany."
The Brothers Grimm preserved and published the traditional tales told in Germany. They were so
popular in their home country that modern, realistic children's literature began to be looked down on
there. This dislike of non-traditional stories continued there until the beginning of the next century. The
Grimms's contribution to children's literature goes beyond their collection of stories, as great as that is.
As professors, they had a scholarly interest in the stories, striving to preserve them and their variations
accurately, recording their sources.
A similar project was carried out by the Norwegian scholars Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen
Moe, who collected Norwegian fairy tales and published them as Norwegian Folktales, often referred to
as Asbjørnsen and Moe. By compiling these stories, they preserved Norway's literary heritage and
helped create the Norwegian written language.
Danish author and poet Hans Christian Andersen traveled through Europe and gathered many well-
known fairy tales and created new stories in the fairy tale genre.
In Switzerland, Johann David Wyss published The Swiss Family Robinson in with the aim of teaching
children about family values, good husbandry, the uses of the natural world and self-reliance. The book
became popular across Europe after it was translated into French by Isabelle de Montolieu.
E. T. A. Hoffmann's tale "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King" was published in 1816 in a German
collection of stories for children, Kinder-Märchen. It is the first modern short story to introduce bizarre,
odd and grotesque elements in children's literature and thereby anticipates Lewis Carroll's tale, Alice's
Adventures in Wonderland. There are not only parallels concerning the content (the weird adventures
of a young girl in a fantasy land), but also the origin of the tales as both are dedicated and given to a
daughter of the author's friends.

Golden age
The shift to a modern genre of children's literature occurred in the mid-19th century; didacticism of a
previous age began to make way for more humorous, child-oriented books, more attuned to the child's
imagination. The availability of children's literature greatly increased as well, as paper and printing
became widely available and affordable, the population grew and literacy rates improved.
Tom Brown's School Days by Thomas Hughes appeared in 1857, and is considered to be the founding
book in the school story tradition. However, it was Lewis Carroll's fantasy, Alice's Adventures in
Wonderland, published in 1865 in England, that signaled the change in writing style for children to an
imaginative and empathetic one. Regarded as the first "English masterpiece written for children" and as
a founding book in the development of fantasy literature, its publication opened the "First Golden Age"
of children's literature in Britain and Europe that continued until the early 1900s. If we follow little
Alice in her wanderings in the "Wonderland", we will soon see that the fairy-tale absurdity has solid
historical ground. With the clear eyes of a child, Lewis Carroll made us look at the various phenomena
of contemporary life. The absurd in the fairy tale shows the satire of the author and the embodiment of
the serious problems of the Victorian era. Lewis Carroll is ironic about the prim and all-out regulated
life of the "golden" Victorian century.
One other noteworthy publication was (1876), which was one of the first "boy books", intended for
children but enjoyed by both children and adults alike. These were classified as such for the themes they
contained, consisting of fighting and work. Another important book of that decade was The Water-
Babies, A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby, by Rev. Charles Kingsley (1862), which became extremely
popular and remains a classic of British children's literature.
In 1883, Carlo Collodi wrote the first Italian fantasy novel, The Adventures of Pinocchio, which was
translated many times. In that same year, Emilio Salgari, the man who would become "the adventure
writer par excellence for the young in Italy" first published his legendary character Sandokan.
In Britain, The Princess and the Goblin and its sequel The Princess and Curdie, by George MacDonald,
appeared in 1872 and 1883, and the adventure stories Treasure Island and Kidnapped, both by Robert
Louis Stevenson, were extremely popular in the 1880s. Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book was first
published in 1894, and J. M. Barrie told the story of Peter Pan in the novel Peter and Wendy in 1911.
Johanna Spyri's two-part novel Heidi was published in Switzerland in 1880 and 1881.
In the US, children's publishing entered a period of growth after the American Civil War in 1865. Boys'
book writer Oliver Optic published over 100 books. In 1868, the "epoch-making" Little Women, the
fictionalized autobiography of Louisa May Alcott, was published. This "coming of age" story
established the genre of realistic family books in the United States. Mark Twain released Tom Sawyer in
1876. In 1880 another bestseller, Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings, a collection of African
American folk tales adapted and compiled by Joel Chandler Harris, appeared.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a plethora of children's novels began featuring realistic, non-
magical plotlines. Certain titles received international success such as Robert Louis Stevenson's
Treasure Island (1883), L. M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables (1908), and Louisa May Alcott's
Little Women (1869)

National traditions
United Kingdom

Illustration from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, 1865

Literature for children had developed as a separate category of literature especially in the Victorian era,
with some works becoming internationally known, such as Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in
Wonderland (1865) and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass. At the end of the Victorian era and
leading into the Edwardian era, Beatrix Potter was an author and illustrator best known for her
children's books, which featured animal characters. In her thirties, Potter published The Tale of Peter
Rabbit in 1902. Potter eventually went on to produce 23 children's books and become a wealthy woman.
Michael O. Tunnell and James S. Jacobs, professors of children's literature at Brigham Young
University, write, "Potter was the first to use pictures as well as words to tell the story, incorporating
coloured illustration with text, page for page." Another classic of the period is Anna Sewell's animal
novel Black Beauty (1877).
Rudyard Kipling published The Jungle Book in 1894. A major theme in the book is abandonment
followed by fostering, as in the life of Mowgli, echoing Kipling's own childhood. In the latter years of
the 19th century, precursors of the modern picture book were illustrated books of poems and short
stories produced by English illustrators Randolph Caldecott, Walter Crane, and Kate Greenaway. These
had a larger proportion of pictures to words than earlier books, and many of their pictures were in
colour. Some British artists made their living illustrating novels and children's books, among them
Arthur Rackham, Cicely Mary Barker, W. Heath Robinson, Henry J. Ford, John Leech, and George
Cruikshank.

Peter Pan statue in Kensington Gardens, London

The Kailyard School of Scottish writers, notably J. M. Barrie, creator of Peter Pan (1904), presented an
idealised version of society and brought fantasy and folklore back into fashion. In 1908, Kenneth
Grahame wrote the children's classic The Wind in the Willows and the Scouts founder Robert Baden-
Powell's first book, Scouting for Boys, was published. Inspiration for Frances Hodgson Burnett's novel
The Secret Garden (1910) was the Great Maytham Hall Garden in Kent. While fighting in the trenches
for the British Army in World War I, Hugh Lofting created the character of Doctor Dolittle, who
appears in a series of twelve books.
The Golden Age of Children's Literature ended with World War I. The period before World War II was
much slower in children's publishing. The main exceptions in England were the publications of Winnie-
the-Pooh by A. A. Milne in 1926, the first Mary Poppins book by P. L. Travers in 1934, The Hobbit by
J. R. R. Tolkien in 1937, and the Arthurian The Sword in the Stone by T. H. White in 1938. Children's
mass paperback books were first released in England in 1940 under the Puffin Books imprint, and their
lower prices helped make book buying possible for children during World War II. Enid Blyton's books
have been among the world's bestsellers since the 1930s, selling more than 600 million copies. Blyton's
books are still enormously popular and have been translated into almost 90 languages. She wrote on a
wide range of topics including education, natural history, fantasy, mystery, and biblical narratives and is
best remembered today for her Noddy, The Famous Five, The Secret Seven, and The Adventure Series.
The first of these children's stories, Five on a Treasure Island, was published in 1942.
Statue of C. S. Lewis in front of the wardrobe from his Narnia book The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

In the 1950s, the book market in Europe began to recover from the effects of the two world wars. An
informal literary discussion group associated with the English faculty at the University of Oxford, were
the "Inklings", with the major fantasy novelists C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien as its main members.
C. S. Lewis published the first installment of The Chronicles of Narnia series in 1950, while Tolkien is
best known, in addition to The Hobbit, as the author of The Lord of the Rings (1954). Another writer of
fantasy stories is Alan Garner author of Elidor (1965), and The Owl Service (1967). The latter is an
adaptation of the myth of Blodeuwedd from the Mabinogion, set in modern Wales – it won Garner the
annual Carnegie Medal from the Library Association, recognising the year's best children's book by a
British author.
Mary Norton wrote The Borrowers (1952), featuring tiny people who borrow from humans. Dodie
Smith's The Hundred and One Dalmatians was published in 1956. Philippa Pearce's Tom's Midnight
Garden (1958) has Tom opening the garden door at night and entering into a different age. The heroine
of Charlotte Sometimes by Penelope Farmer (1969) is already shaken by her arrival in a girls' boarding
school when she finds herself waking as another girl in the same bed, but decades earlier. Closer to
reality, Jenny in No One Must Know (1962) by Barbara Sleigh is a newcomer in the street who faces a
landlord's pet ban. She needs urgent help from nearby children to hide her cat and kittens.

Willy Wonka (from Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), and the Mad Hatter (from Lewis Carroll's
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland)

Roald Dahl wrote children's fantasy novels which were often inspired from experiences from his
childhood, with often unexpected endings, and unsentimental, dark humour. Dahl was inspired to write
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964), featuring the eccentric chocolatier Willy Wonka, having
grown up near two chocolate makers in England who often tried to steal trade secrets by sending spies
into the other's factory. His other works include James and the Giant Peach (1961), Fantastic Mr. Fox
(1971), The Witches (1983), and Matilda (1988). Starting in 1958, Michael Bond published humorous
stories about Paddington Bear.
Boarding schools in literature are centred on older pre-adolescent and adolescent school life, and are
most commonly set in English boarding schools. Popular school stories from this period include Ronald
Searle's comic St Trinian's (1949–1953) and his illustrations for Geoffrey Willans's Molesworth series,
Jill Murphy's The Worst Witch, and the Jennings series by Anthony Buckeridge.
Ruth Manning-Sanders collected and retold fairy tales. Her first work A Book of Giants contains a
number of famous giants, notably Jack and the Beanstalk. Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising is a five-
volume fantasy saga set in England and Wales. Raymond Briggs' children's picture book The Snowman
(1978) has been adapted as an animation, shown every Christmas on British television. The Reverend.
W. Awdry and son Christopher's The Railway Series features Thomas the Tank Engine. Margery Sharp's
series The Rescuers is based on a heroic mouse organisation. The third Children's Laureate Michael
Morpurgo published War Horse in 1982. The prolific children's author Dick King-Smith's novels
include The Sheep-Pig (1984), and The Water Horse. Diana Wynne Jones wrote the young adult fantasy
novel Howl's Moving Castle in 1986. Anthony Horowitz's Alex Rider series begins with Stormbreaker
(2000). Cressida Cowell's How to Train Your Dragon series were published between 2003 and 2015.
Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials is an epic trilogy of fantasy novels consisting of Northern Lights
(1995, published as The Golden Compass in North America), The Subtle Knife (1997), and The Amber
Spyglass (2000). It follows the coming of age of two children, Lyra Belacqua and Will Parry, as they
wander through a series of parallel universes. The three novels have won a number of awards, most
notably the 2001 Whitbread Book of the Year prize, won by The Amber Spyglass. Northern Lights won
the Carnegie Medal for children's fiction in 1995. Neil Gaiman wrote the dark fantasy children's novella
Coraline (2002).
J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter fantasy sequence of seven novels chronicles the adventures of the
adolescent wizard Harry Potter. The series began with Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in
1997 and ended with the seventh and final book Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in 2007;
becoming the bestselling book-series in history. The series has been translated into 67 languages, so
placing Rowling among the most translated authors in history.
Adventure fiction

Illustration from Robert Louis Stevenson's 1883 pirate adventure Treasure Island

While Daniel Defoe wrote Robinson Crusoe in 1719 (spawning so many imitations it defined a genre,
Robinsonade), adventure stories written specifically for children began in the nineteenth century. Early
examples from British authors include Frederick Marryat's The Children of the New Forest (1847) and
Harriet Martineau's The Peasant and the Prince (1856).
The Victorian era saw the development of the genre, with W. H. G. Kingston, R. M. Ballantyne and G.
A. Henty specializing in the production of adventure fiction for boys. This inspired writers who
normally catered to adult audiences to write for children, a notable example being Robert Louis
Stevenson's classic pirate story Treasure Island (1883).
In the years after the First World War, writers such as Arthur Ransome developed the adventure genre
by setting the adventure in Britain rather than distant countries. In the 1930s he began publishing his
Swallows and Amazons series of children's books about the school-holiday adventures of children,
mostly in the English Lake District and the Norfolk Broads. Many of them involve sailing; fishing and
camping are other common subjects. Biggles was a popular series of adventure books for young boys,
about James Bigglesworth, a fictional pilot and adventurer, by W. E. Johns. Biggles made his first
appearance in the story The White Fokker, published in the first issue of Popular Flying magazine and
again as part of the first collection of Biggles stories, The Camels Are Coming (both 1932). Johns
continued to write Biggles books until his death in 1968, the series eventually spanning nearly a
hundred volumes – including novels and short story collections – most of the latter with a common
setting and time. These included novels about a woman pilot in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force
(WAAF), Flight Officer Joan Worralson, better known as "Worrals".
Geoffrey Trease and Rosemary Sutcliff brought a new sophistication to the historical adventure novel.
Philip Pullman in the Sally Lockhart novels and Julia Golding in the Cat Royal series have continued
the tradition of the historical adventure.

Magazines and comics

Statue of Minnie the Minx, a character from The Beano. Launched in 1938, the comic is known for its anarchic
humour, with Dennis the Menace appearing on the cover.

An important aspect of British children's literature has been comic books and magazines. Amongst the
most popular comics have been The Beano and The Dandy (both published in the 1930s). British comics
in the 20th century evolved from illustrated penny dreadfuls of the Victorian era (featuring Sweeney
Todd, Dick Turpin and Varney the Vampire). First published in the 1830s, according to The Guardian,
penny dreadfuls were "Britain's first taste of mass-produced popular culture for the young." Important
early magazines or story papers for older children were the Boy's Own Paper, published from 1879 to
1967 and The Girl's Own Paper published from 1880 until 1956. Other story papers for older boys were
The Hotspur (1933 to 1959) and The Rover, which started in 1922 and was absorbed into Adventure in
1961 and The Wizard in 1963, and eventually folded in 1973. Many prominent authors contributed to
the Boy's Own Paper: cricketer W.G. Grace wrote for several issues, along with authors Arthur Conan
Doyle, Jules Verne and R. M. Ballantyne, as well as Robert Baden-Powell, the inspiration for the Scout
Movement. Between 1941–1961 there were 60 issues with stories about Biggles by W. E. Johns, and in
the 1960s occasional contributors included Isaac Asimov and the respected astronomer Patrick Moore.
Many contributors to The Girl's Own Paper were not known outside the paper's pages, but they also
included Noel Streatfeild, Eleanor Hoyt Brainerd, Rosa Nouchette Carey, Sarah Doudney (1841–1926),
Angela Brazil, Lucy Maud Montgomery, Richmal Crompton, Fanny Fern, and Baroness Orczy.
Between 1940 and 1947, Captain W. E. Johns contributed sixty stories featuring the female pilot
Worrals.
The Eagle was a popular British comic for boys, launched in 1950 by Marcus Morris, an Anglican vicar
from Lancashire. Revolutionary in its presentation and content, it was enormously successful; the first
issue sold about 900,000 copies Featured in colour on the front cover was its most recognisable story,
"Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future", created with meticulous attention to detail. Other popular stories
included "Riders of the Range" and "P.C. 49". Eagle also contained news and sport sections, and
educational cutaway diagrams of sophisticated machinery. A members club was created, and a range of
related merchandise was licensed for sale It was first published from 1950 to 1969, and relaunched from
1982 to 1994. Its sister comic was Girl, whose early issues from 1951 featured the strip "Kitty Hawke
and her All-Girl Air Crew".
United States

The Story of Mankind (1921) by Hendrik van Loon, 1st Newbery Award winner

Children's literature has been a part of American culture since Europeans first settled in America. The
earliest books were used as tools to instill self-control in children and preach a life of morality in
Puritan society. Eighteenth-century American youth began to shift away from the social upbringing of
its European counterpart, bringing about a change in children's literature. It was in this time that A Little
Book for Little Children was written by T. W. in 1712. It includes what is thought to be the earliest
nursery rhyme and one of the earliest examples of a textbook approaching education from the child's
point of view, rather than the adult's.
Children's magazines in the United States began with the Young Misses' Magazine (1806) of Brooklyn;
New York.
One of the most famous books of American children's literature is L. Frank Baum's fantasy novel The
Wonderful Wizard of Oz, published in 1900. "By combining the English fondness for word play with the
American appetite for outdoor adventure", Connie Epstein in International Companion Encyclopedia Of
Children's Literature says Baum "developed an original style and form that stands alone". Baum wrote
fourteen more Oz novels, and other writers continued the Oz series into the twenty-first century.
Demand continued to grow in North America between World War I and World War II, helped by the
growth of libraries in both Canada and the United States. Children's reading rooms in libraries, staffed
by specially trained librarians, helped create demand for classic juvenile books. Reviews of children's
releases began appearing regularly in Publishers Weekly and in The Bookman magazine began to
publish regular reviews of children's releases. The first Children's Book Week was launched in 1919. In
that same year, Louise Seaman Bechtel became the first person to head a juvenile book publishing
department in the country. She was followed by May Massee in 1922, and Alice Dalgliesh in 1934.
The American Library Association began awarding the Newbery Medal, the first children's book award,
in 1922. The Caldecott Medal for illustration followed in 1938. The first book by Laura Ingalls Wilder
about her life on the American frontier, Little House in the Big Woods appeared in 1932. In 1937 Dr.
Seuss published his first book, entitled, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street. The young adult
book market developed during this period, thanks to sports books by popular writer John R. Tunis', the
novel Seventeenth Summer by Maureen Daly, and the Sue Barton nurse book series by Helen Dore
Boylston.
The already vigorous growth in children's books became a boom in the 1950s, and children's publishing
became big business. In 1952, American journalist E. B. White published Charlotte's Web, which was
described as "one of the very few books for young children that face, squarely, the subject of death".
Maurice Sendak illustrated more than two dozen books during the decade, which established him as an
innovator in book illustration. The Sputnik crisis that began in 1957, provided increased interest and
government money for schools and libraries to buy science and math books and the non-fiction book
market "seemed to materialize overnight".
The 1960s saw an age of new realism in children's books emerge. Given the atmosphere of social
revolution in 1960s America, authors and illustrators began to break previously established taboos in
children's literature. Controversial subjects dealing with alcoholism, death, divorce, and child abuse
were now being published in stories for children. Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are in 1963
and Louise Fitzhugh's Harriet the Spy in 1964 are often considered the first stories published in this
new age of realism.
Esther Forbes in Johnny Tremain (1943) and Mildred D. Taylor in Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry
(1976) continued the tradition of the historical adventure in an American setting. The modern children's
adventure novel sometimes deals with controversial issues like terrorism, as in Robert Cormier's After
the First Death in 1979, and warfare in the Third World, as in Peter Dickinson's AK in 1990.
In books for a younger age group, Bill Martin and John Archambault's Chicka Chicka Boom Boom
(1989) presented a new spin on the alphabet book. Laura Numeroff published If You Give a Mouse a
Cookie in 1985 and went on to create a series of similarly named books that is still popular for children
and adults to read together.
Lloyd Alexander's The Chronicles of Prydain (1964-1968) was set in a fictionalized version of
medieval Britain.
Continental Europe
Johann David Wyss wrote the adventure novel The Swiss Family Robinson (1812). The period from
1890 until World War I is considered the Golden Age of Children's Literature in Scandinavia. Erik
Werenskiold, Theodor Kittelsen, and Dikken Zwilgmeyer were especially popular, writing folk and
fairy tales as well as realistic fiction. The 1859 translation into English by George Webbe Dasent helped
increase the stories' influence. One of the most influential and internationally most successful
Scandinavian children's books from this period is Selma Lagerlöfs The Wonderful Adventures of Nils.
Astrid Lindgren (Pippi Longstocking) and Jostein Gaarder (Sophie's World) are two of the best-known
Scandinavian writers internationally.
The interwar period saw a slow-down in output similar to Britain's, although "one of the first mysteries
written specifically for children", Emil and the Detectives by Erich Kästner, was published in Germany
in 1930. German writers Michael Ende (The Neverending Story) and Cornelia Funke (Inkheart)
achieved international success with their fantasy books.
The period during and following World War II became the Classic Age of the picture book in
Switzerland, with works by Alois Carigiet, Felix Hoffmann, and Hans Fischer. Nineteen sixty-three
(1963) was the first year of the Bologna Children's Book Fair in Italy, which was described as "the most
important international event dedicated to the children's publishing". For four days it brings together
writers, illustrators, publishers, and book buyers from around the world.
Swiss author Marcus Pfister's Rainbow Fish series has received international acclaim since 1992.
Russia and the Soviet Union

Postal stamp of Russia celebrating children's books.

Russian folktales were collected by Aleksandr Afanasyev in his three-volume Narodnye russkie skazki,
and a selection of these were published in Русские детские сказки (Russian Children's Fairy Tales) in
1871. By the 1860s, literary realism and non-fiction dominated children's literature. More schools were
started, using books by writers like Konstantin Ushinsky and Leo Tolstoy, whose Russian Reader
included an assortment of stories, fairy tales, and fables. Books written specifically for girls developed
in the 1870s and 1880s. Publisher and journalist Evgenia Tur wrote about the daughters of well-to-do
landowners, while Alexandra Nikitichna Annenskaya's stories told of middle-class girls working to
support themselves. Vera Zhelikhovsky, Elizaveta Kondrashova, and Nadezhda Lukhmanova also wrote
for girls during this period.
Children's non-fiction gained great importance in Russia at the beginning of the century. A ten-volume
children's encyclopedia was published between 1913 and 1914. Vasily Avenarius wrote fictionalized
biographies of important people like Nikolai Gogol and Alexander Pushkin around the same time, and
scientists wrote for books and magazines for children. Children's magazines flourished, and by the end
of the century there were 61. Lidia Charskaya and Klavdiya Lukashevich continued the popularity of
girls' fiction. Realism took a gloomy turn by frequently showing the maltreatment of children from
lower classes. The most popular boys' material was Sherlock Holmes, and similar stories from detective
magazines.
The state took control of children's literature during the October Revolution. Maksim Gorky edited the
first children's Northern Lights under Soviet rule. People often label the 1920s as the Golden Age of
Children's Literature in Russia. Samuil Marshak led that literary decade as the "founder of (Soviet)
children's literature". As head of the children's section of the State Publishing House and editor of
several children's magazines, Marshak exercised enormous influence by recruiting Boris Pasternak and
Osip Mandelstam to write for children.
In 1932, professional writers in the Soviet Union formed the USSR Union of Writers, which served as
the writer's organization of the Communist Party. With a children's branch, the official oversight of the
professional organization brought children's writers under the control of the state and the police.
Communist principles like collectivism and solidarity became important themes in children's literature.
Authors wrote biographies about revolutionaries like Lenin and Pavlik Morozov. Alexander Belyayev,
who wrote in the 1920s and 1930s, became Russia's first science fiction writer. According to Ben
Hellman in the International Companion Encyclopedia of Children's Literature, "war was to occupy a
prominent place in juvenile reading, partly compensating for the lack of adventure stories", during the
Soviet Period. More political changes in Russia after World War II brought further change in children's
literature. Today, the field is in a state of flux because some older authors are being rediscovered and
others are being abandoned.
China
The Chinese Revolution of 1911 and World War II brought political and social change that
revolutionized children's literature in China. Western science, technology, and literature became
fashionable. China's first modern publishing firm, Commercial Press, established several children's
magazines, which included Youth Magazine, and Educational Pictures for Children. The first Chinese
children's writer was Sun Yuxiu, an editor of Commercial Press, whose story The Kingdom Without a
Cat was written in the language of the time instead of the classical style used previously. Yuxiu
encouraged novelist Shen Dehong to write for children as well. Dehong went on to rewrite 28 stories
based on classical Chinese literature specifically for children. In 1932, Zhang Tianyi published Big Lin
and Little Lin, the first full-length Chinese novel for children.
The Chinese Revolution of 1949 changed children's literature again. Many children's writers were
denounced, but Tianyi and Ye Shengtao continued to write for children and created works that were
aligned with Maoist ideology. The 1976 death of Mao Zedong provoked more changes that swept
China. The work of many writers from the early part of the century became available again. In 1990
came General Anthology of Modern Children's Literature of China, a fifteen-volume anthology of
children's literature since the 1920s.
Brazil
In Brazil, Monteiro Lobato wrote a series of 23 books for children known as Sítio do Picapau Amarelo
(The Yellow Woodpecker Ranch), between 1920 and 1940. The series is considered representative of
Brazilian children's literature and the Brazilian equivalent to children's classics such as C. S. Lewis, The
Chronicles of Narnia and L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz series. The concept was
introduced in Monteiro Lobato's 1920 short story "A Menina do Narizinho Arrebitado", and was later
republished as the first chapter of "Reinações de Narizinho", which is the first novel of the series. The
main setting is the "Sítio do Picapau Amarelo", where a boy (Pedrinho), a girl (Narizinho) and their
living and thinking anthropomorphic toys enjoy exploring adventures in fantasy, discovery and
learning. On several occasions, they leave the ranch to explore other worlds such as Neverland, the
mythological Ancient Greece, an underwater world known as "Reino das Águas Claras" (Clear Waters
Kingdom), and even the outer space. The "Sítio" is often symbolized by the character of Emília,
Lobato's most famous creation.
India

The Crescent Moon by Rabindranath Tagore illus. by Nandalal Bose, Macmillan 1913
Christian missionaries first established the Calcutta School-Book Society in the 19th century, creating a
separate genre for children's literature in that country. Magazines and books for children in native
languages soon appeared. In the latter half of the century, Raja Shivprasad wrote several well-known
books in Hindustani. A number of respected Bengali writers began producing Bengali literature for
children, including Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, who translated some stories and wrote others himself.
Nobel Prize-winner Rabindranath Tagore wrote plays, stories, and poems for children, including one
work illustrated by painter Nandalal Bose. They worked from the end of the nineteenth century into the
beginning of the twentieth. Tagore's work was later translated into English, with Bose's pictures.Behari
Lal Puri was the earliest writer for children in Punjabi. His stories were didactic in nature.
The first full-length children's book was Khar Khar Mahadev by Narain Dixit, which was serialized in
one of the popular children's magazines in 1957. Other writers include Premchand, and poet Sohan Lal
Dwivedi. In 1919, Sukumar Ray wrote and illustrated nonsense rhymes in the Bengali language, and
children's writer and artist Abanindranath Tagore finished Barngtarbratn. Bengali children's literature
flourished in the later part of the twentieth century. Educator Gijubhai Badheka published over 200
books in the Children's literature in Gujarati language, and many are still popular. Other popular
Gujarati children's authors were Ramanlal Soni and Jivram Joshi.
In 1957, political cartoonist K. Shankar Pillai founded the Children's Book Trust publishing company.
The firm became known for high quality children's books, and many of them were released in several
languages. One of the most distinguished writers is Pandit Krushna Chandra Kar in Oriya literature,
who wrote many good books for children, including Pari Raija, Kuhuka Raija, Panchatantra, and Adi
Jugara Galpa Mala. He wrote biographies of many historical personalities, such as Kapila Deva. In
1978, the firm organized a writers' competition to encourage quality children's writing. The following
year, the Children's Book Trust began a writing workshop and organized the First International
Children's Book Fair in New Delhi.Children's magazines, available in many languages, were
widespread throughout India during this century. Ruskin Bond is also a famous Anglo-Indian writer for
children.
Iran
One of the pioneering children's writer in Persian was Mehdi Azar-Yazdi.His award-winning work,
Good Stories for Good Children, is a collection of stories derived from the stories in Classical Persian
literature re-written for children.
Nigeria
Originally, for centuries, stories were told by Africans in their native languages, many being told during
social gatherings. Stories varied between mythic narratives dealing with creation and basic proverbs
showcasing human wisdom. These narratives were passed down from generation to generation orally.
Since its independence in 1960, Nigeria has witnessed a rise in the production of children's literature by
its people, the past three decades contributing the most to the genre. Most children's books depict the
African culture and lifestyle, and trace their roots to traditional folktales, riddles, and proverbs. Authors
who have produced such works include Chinua Achebe, Cyprian Ekwensi, Amos Tutuola, Flora
Nwapa, and Buchi Emecheta. Publishing companies also aided in the development of children's
literature.
Classification
Children's literature can be divided into categories, either according to genre or the intended age of the
reader.
A Tagore illustration of a Hindu myth

By genre
A literary genre is a category of literary compositions. Genres may be determined by technique, tone,
content, or length. According to Anderson, there are six categories of children's literature (with some
significant subgenres):
 Picture books, including concept books that teach the alphabet or counting for example, pattern books,
and wordless books
 Traditional literature, including folktales, which convey the legends, customs, superstitions, and beliefs
of people in previous civilizations. This genre can be further broken into subgenres: myths, fables,
legends, and fairy tales
 Fiction, including fantasy, realistic fiction, and historical fiction
 Non-fiction
 Biography and autobiography
 Poetry and verse

By age category
The criteria for these divisions are vague, and books near a borderline may be classified either way.
Books for younger children tend to be written in simple language, use large print, and have many
illustrations. Books for older children use increasingly complex language, normal print, and fewer (if
any) illustrations. The categories with an age range are these:
 Picture books, appropriate for pre-readers or children ages 0–5
 Early reader books, appropriate for children ages 5–7. These are often designed to help children build
their reading skills
 Chapter books, appropriate for children ages 7–12
o Short chapter books, appropriate for children ages 7–9
o Longer chapter books, appropriate for children ages 9–12
 Young adult fiction, appropriate for children ages 12–18

Illustration
A late 18th-century reprint of Orbis Pictus by Comenius, the first children's picture book.

Pictures have always accompanied children's stories. A papyrus from Byzantine Egypt, shows
illustrations accompanied by the story of Hercules' labors. Modern children's books are illustrated in a
way that is rarely seen in adult literature, except in graphic novels. Generally, artwork plays a greater
role in books intended for younger readers (especially pre-literate children). Children's picture books
often serve as an accessible source of high quality art for young children. Even after children learn to
read well enough to enjoy a story without illustrations, they (like their elders) continue to appreciate the
occasional drawings found in chapter books.
According to Joyce Whalley in The International Companion Encyclopedia of Children's Literature,
"an illustrated book differs from a book with illustrations in that a good illustrated book is one where
the pictures enhance or add depth to the text." Using this definition, the first illustrated children's book
is considered to be Orbis Pictus which was published in 1658 by the Moravian author Comenius.
Acting as a kind of encyclopedia,Orbis Pictus had a picture on every page, followed by the name of the
object in Latin and German. It was translated into English in 1659 and was used in homes and schools
around Europe and Great Britain for many years.
Early children's books, such as Orbis Pictus, were illustrated by woodcut, and many times the same
image was repeated in a number of books regardless of how appropriate the illustration was for the
story. Newer processes, including copper and steel engraving were first used in the 1830s. One of the
first uses of Chromolithography (a way of making multi-colored prints) in a children's book was
demonstrated in Struwwelpeter, published in Germany in 1845. English illustrator Walter Crane refined
its use in children's books in the late 19th century.

Walter Crane's chromolithograph illustration for The Frog Prince, 1874.

Another method of creating illustrations for children's books was etching, used by George Cruikshank
in the 1850s. By the 1860s, top artists were illustrating for children, including Crane, Randolph
Caldecott, Kate Greenaway, and John Tenniel. Most pictures were still black-and-white, and many color
pictures were hand colored, often by children. The Essential Guide to Children's Books and Their
Creators credits Caldecott with "The concept of extending the meaning of text beyond literal
visualization".
Twentieth-century artists such as Kay Nielson, Edmund Dulac, and Arthur Rackham produced
illustrations that are still reprinted today. Developments in printing capabilities were reflected in
children's books. After World War II, offset lithography became more refined, and painter-style
illustrations, such as Brian Wildsmith's were common by the 1950s.
Illustrators of Children’s Books, 1744-1945 (Horn Book, 1947), an extensively detailed four volume
work by Louise Payson Latimer, Bertha E. Mahony and Beulah Folmsbee, catalogs illustrators of
children's books over two centuries.