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, 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...)
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Hornbooks were used to teach literacy in the 15th – 19th centuries.
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
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- Literature • Books • Novels
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- Related projects
- Artemis Fowl • Discworld • Fablehaven • Harry Potter • Inheritance Cycle • Lemony Snicket • Redwall • Oz
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Did you know...
- ...that Lamb Chop (pictured) is a fictional sheep that was created by comedian and ventriloquist Shari Lewis and first appeared on the children's television show Captain Kangaroo in 1957?
- ...that the US children's television series Romper Room aired for over forty years?
- ...that Yucca Mountain Johnny is a cartoon character created to explain nuclear waste disposal to children, and has attracted controversy, being compared to Joe Camel?
Featured content
Featured articles
Chinua Achebe- Argosy (magazine)
- Bronwyn Bancroft
- Enid Blyton
- Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang
- 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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