History of Children's Literature
Children’s literature is a nebulous category of literature with a complex history. For anyone who wishes to read a more comprehensive and detailed history of children’s literature, please visit http://www.indiana.edu/~reading/ieo/bibs/childhis.html. However, for the purposes of this project, it might be interesting to know only a few relevant historical points in children’s literature:
1. For many years, the realm of children’s literature often was a sort of dumping ground for literature that adults felt they had outgrown, such as myths, folklores and fairy tales; these stories slowly became regarded as fantastical or outdated and, as a result, only suitable for children to read.
2. Prior to Victorian-era England, very few stories were created specifically for children. Literature that was written for children had a tendency to be highly religious in tone and didactic in message. Examples of this type of text would be the British moral verses, such as “Table Rules for Little Folks” or Eliza Cook’s “The Mouse and the Cake”; these stories share the common theme that when a child misbehaves, it is equivalent to a child committing a sin. From the United States, The New England Primer is also a good example of religious texts developed for children.
3. The Victorian period is credited as the era where a major shift took place in the purpose of children’s literature; the Victorians were not the first to attempt this change, but they did the most in terms of quantity of books written. During this time, many books were created which did not contain moral or religious messages. Stories such as Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, Edward Lear’s nonsense verses and J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan were revolutionary in the sense that they were written for a child’s pleasure and not for the purposes of discipline.
Read more:
Introduction
Approaches to Children's Dreaming
History of Children's Literature
Alice in Wonderland
Suggested Readings, Links and Images
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