Portal:Children's literature
The Children's Literature Portal
Children's literature or juvenile literature includes stories, books, magazines, and poems that are created for children. Modern children's literature is classified in two different ways: genre or the intended age of the reader, from picture books for the very young to young adult fiction.
Children's literature can be traced to traditional stories like fairy tales, that have only been identified as children's literature in the eighteenth century, 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. 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...)
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![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/49/Edward_Lear_A_Book_of_Nonsense_114.jpg/250px-Edward_Lear_A_Book_of_Nonsense_114.jpg)
Edward Lear, A Book of Nonsense (1846)
In this month
- 8 September – International Literacy Day
- 16 September 1898 – Birth of H. A. Rey who, together with his wife Margret Rey, authored and illustrated the Curious George books
- 17 September 1998 – Death of Francelia Butler, who helped found the journal Children's Literature
- 30 September 1868 – Part One of Louisa May Alcott's (pictured) Little Women is published, becoming an overnight success
- 30 September 2005 – Publication of the illustrations solicited for Kåre Bluitgen's book on the life of Muhammad, sparking the Muhammad cartoons controversy
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Did you know...
- ...that Anna Laetitia Barbauld's (pictured) Lessons for Children (1778–79) revolutionized children's literature, introducing what novelist Frances Burney called a "new walk"?
- ...that Peter and Jane are the main characters in a series of 36 children's early readers for the English language published by Ladybird Books that have been in print for over 40 years, and have sold over 80 million copies?
- ...that the fictional goat Koziołek Matołek has been a popular Polish children's literature character since first appearing in 1933?
Featured content
Featured articles
Chinua Achebe
Argosy (magazine)
Bronwyn Bancroft
Enid Blyton
The Coral Island
Edmund Evans
Ian Fleming
The Fox and the Hound (novel)
Anne Frank
The Guardian of Education
The Hardy Boys
The Hunger Games (novel)
Lad, A Dog
Ursula K. Le Guin
Julianne Moore
Baron Munchausen
The Phantom Tollbooth
Proserpine (play)
Talbot Baines Reed
Sally Ride
J. K. Rowling
Scoops (magazine)
Mary Martha Sherwood
The Story of Miss Moppet
Tom Swift
To Kill a Mockingbird
J. R. R. Tolkien
When Megan Went Away
A Wizard of Earthsea
Mary Wollstonecraft
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Children's literature: Book talk • Children's literature criticism • Children's literature periodicals • International Children's Digital Library • Native Americans in children's literature
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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