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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Little Black Sambo (1899), illustrated by Helen Bannerman, uses racial stereotypes to depict the Indian hero.
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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WikiProjects
- Parent projects
- Literature • Books • Novels
- Main project
- Related projects
- Artemis Fowl • Discworld • Fablehaven • Harry Potter • Inheritance Cycle • Lemony Snicket • Redwall • Oz
What are WikiProjects?
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Did you know...
- ... that Louis-Maurice Boutet de Monvel won a medal as a fine artist in Paris before becoming a children's book illustrator (example pictured)?
- ...that De brief voor de koning (The Letter for the King) by Tonke Dragt was chosen in 2004 by the judges of the Gouden Griffel as the best Dutch children's novel of the past fifty years?
- ... that the 1916 children's novel Just David was the second in a series of four consecutive bestsellers in the United States for Eleanor H. Porter?
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
Featured lists
Categories
Topics
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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