Portal:Children's literature

The Children's Literature Portal

Children looking at picture books at school, Santa Clara, Utah

Children's literature or juvenile literature includes stories, books, magazines, and poems that are created for children. In addition to conventional literary genres, modern children's literature is classified by the intended age of the reader, ranging from picture books for the very young to young adult fiction for those nearing maturity.

Children's literature can be traced to traditional stories like fairy tales, which have only been identified as children's literature since the eighteenth century, and songs, part of a wider oral tradition, which 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 fifteenth century much literature has been aimed specifically at children, often with a moral or religious message. Children's literature has been shaped by religious sources, like Puritan traditions, or by more philosophical and scientific standpoints with the influences of Charles Darwin and John Locke. The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are known as the "Golden Age of Children's Literature" because many classic children's books were published then. (Full article...)

Selected article

Original Stories from Real Life; with Conversations Calculated to Regulate the Affections, and Form the Mind to Truth and Goodness is the only complete work of children's literature by 18th-century British feminist Mary Wollstonecraft. It begins with a frame story, which sketches out the education of two young girls by their maternal teacher Mrs. Mason, proceeded by a series of didactic tales. The book was first published by Joseph Johnson in 1788; a second, illustrated edition, with engravings by William Blake, was released in 1791 and remained in print for around a quarter of a century. Wollstonecraft employs the burgeoning genre of children's literature to promote the education of women and an emerging middle-class ideology. She argues that women can be rational adults if they are educated properly as children (not a widely-held belief in the 18th century) and contends that the nascent middle-class ethos is superior to the court culture represented by fairy tales and to the values of chance and luck found in chapbook stories for the poor.

Selected picture

Little Black Sambo (1899), illustrated by Helen Bannerman, uses racial stereotypes to depict the Indian hero.

In this month

Janusz Korczak memorial

August 1942 - Death of Janusz Korczak, (memorial pictured), a Polish-Jewish children's author, pediatrician, and pedagogue
August 2007 – Lloyd Alexander, known for his Chronicles of Prydain, publishes his last novel
August 2007 – The Dandy, the third-longest running comic in the world, becomes The Dandy Xtreme
11 August 1897 – Birth of Enid Blyton, the fifth-most translated author worldwide
28 August 1995 – Death of Michael Ende, German children's writer best known for The Neverending Story

More anniversaries...

Selected quote

WikiProjects

Parent projects

Literature • Books • Novels

Main project

Wikipedia:WikiProject Children's literature

Related projects

Artemis Fowl • Discworld • Fablehaven • Harry Potter • Inheritance Cycle • Lemony Snicket • Redwall • Oz

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Selected biography

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 1854 – 30 November 1900) was an Irish playwright, poet and author of numerous short stories and one novel. Known for his biting wit, he became one of the most successful playwrights of the late Victorian era in London, and one of the greatest celebrities of his day. Several of his plays continue to be widely performed, especially The Importance of Being Earnest. As the result of a widely covered series of trials, Wilde suffered a dramatic downfall and was imprisoned for two years hard labour after being convicted of "gross indecency" with other men. After Wilde was released from prison he set sail for Dieppe by the night ferry. He never returned to Ireland or Britain. Wilde wrote almost all of his major and minor works in the last decade of his life, including his fairy tales and short stories for children. He published three volumes of these, The Happy Prince and Other Tales, Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime and Other Stories and A House of Pomegranates.

Did you know...

Hot Chip

... that the music video for British electropop band Hot Chip's (pictured) song "Boy From School" was said to invoke the memory of the children's art series, Art Attack?
... that American children's literature author Howard Pease, who often set his stories on tramp freighters, himself shipped out when he needed new material?
...that Carnegie Medal-winning children’s author Berlie Doherty has written the libretti for three operas?

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Topics

Children's literature and Young adult literature

Children's literature: Book talk • Children's literature criticism • Children's literature periodicals • International Children's Digital Library • Native Americans in children's literature

Children and Young Adult Literature topics

Young adult literature: Gay teen fiction • Lesbian teen fiction • List of young adult authors • Young Adult Library Services Association

Associations and awards: Children's Book Council of Australia • CBCA book awards • Governor General's Literary Award for Children's Literature and Illustration • IBBY Canada • American Library Association • Association for Library Service to Children • Newbery Medal • Caldecott Medal • Golden Kite Award • Ezra Jack Keats Book Award • SCBWI • Sibert Medal • Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal • Batchelder Award • Coretta Scott King Award • Belpre Medal • Carnegie Medal • Kate Greenaway Medal • Nestlé Smarties Book Prize • Guardian Award • Hans Christian Andersen Award • Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award • Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators

Lists: List of children's classic books • List of children's literature authors • List of children's non-fiction writers • List of fairy tales • List of illustrators • List of publishers of children's books

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