Portal:Children's literature

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Introduction

A mother reads to her children, depicted by Jessie Willcox Smith in a cover illustration of a volume of fairy tales written in the mid to late 19th century.

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 fifteenth century much literature has been aimed specifically at children, often with a moral or religious message. The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries is known as the "Golden Age of Children's Literature", because many classic children's books were published then.

Selected article

Bambi, A Life in the Woods, originally published in Austria as Bambi. Eine Lebensgeschichte aus dem Walde, is a 1923 Austrian novel written by Felix Salten and published by Paul Zsolnay Verlag. The novel traces the life of Bambi, a male roe deer, from his birth through childhood, the loss of his mother, the finding of a mate, the lessons he learns from his father and experience about the dangers posed by human hunters in the forest. Considered to be one of the first environmental novels published, an English translation by Whittaker Chambers was published in North America by Simon & Schuster in 1928. The novel has since been translated and published in over 20 languages around the world. Salten released a sequel, Bambis Kinder, eine Familie im Walde (Bambi's Children), in 1939. The novel was well received by critics and is considered a classic. It was adapted into a theatrical animated film, Bambi, by Walt Disney Studios in 1942, two Russian live-action adaptations in 1985 and 1986, and a stage production in 1998. Janet Schulman released a children's picture book adaptation in 2000 that featured realistic oil-paintings and many of Salten's original words.

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Selected biography

Terry Pratchett is an English novelist, known for his frequently comical work in the fantasy genre. He is best known for his popular and long-running Discworld series of comic fantasy novels. Pratchett's first novel, The Carpet People, was published in 1971, and since his first Discworld novel (The Colour of Magic) was published in 1983, he has written two books a year on average. Pratchett is also known for close collaboration on adaptations of his books. Pratchett was the UK's best-selling author of the 1990s, and as of December 2007 has sold more than 55 million books worldwide, with translations made into 36 languages. He is currently the second most-read writer in the UK, and seventh most-read non-US author in the US. In 2001 he won the Carnegie Medal for his children's novel The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents.

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In this month

November 1873 – First issue of St. Nicholas Magazine published
November 1885 – Frances Hodgson Burnett's Little Lord Fauntleroy (pictured) is serialized, popularizing velvet suits and ringlet curls
4 November 1670 – Death of John Amos Comenius, author of Orbis Pictus, the first picture book for children
18 November 1928 – Release of the first sound Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie
29 November 1898 – Birth of C. S. Lewis, author of The Chronicles of Narnia

More anniversaries...

Selected quote

She had no money, so the only thing to do was to make a pair of shoes herself! At first the difficulty of the task discouraged her. She had never really considered how shoes were made.... Her respect for shoemakers increased.... When night fell, she was still hard at work. But she longer had any doubt of her success. If the first attempt did not bring it, she would try again. Even if the second or third trial did not prove successful, she would keep on trying — until the tenth time if necessary!

— Hector Malot, En Famille

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Selected images

1900 edition of the controversial The Story of Little Black Sambo
Postal stamp of Russia celebrating children's books.
The Adventures of Pinocchio (1883) is a canonical piece of children's literature and one of the best-selling books ever published.
J. K. Rowling, 2010
A Tagore illustration of a Hindu myth
The New England Primer
A mother reads to her children, depicted by Jessie Willcox Smith in a cover illustration of a volume of fairy tales written in the mid to late 19th century.
A late 18th-century reprint of Orbis Pictus by Comenius, the first children's picture book.
The Story of Mankind (1921) by Hendrik van Loon, 1st Newbery Award winner
Roald Dahl
Walter Crane's chromolithograph illustration for The Frog Prince, 1874.
An early Mexican hornbook pictured in Tuer's History of the Horn-Book, 1896.
Brothers Grimm, Wilhelm (left) and Jakob Grimm (right) from an 1855 painting by Elisabeth Jerichau-Baumann

Did you know...

...that Phil Lynott (pictured) was featured in a lunar ecliptic children's fairy tale which has been criticised by internet trolls?
...that the Children's Literature Association developed a canon of children's literature consisting of 63 titles, beginning with Little Women (1869)?
...that the poet, novelist and children's author Karin Bang is a passionate collector of ancient dolls?