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.
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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Hansel and Gretel by Arthur Rackham (1909)
In this month
- March 2009 – Margaret Mahy was commemorated as one of the Twelve Local Heroes in Christchurch, New Zealand in honor of her children's writings
- 2 March 1904 - Birth of Theodor Seuss Geisel (pictured), American writer and cartoonist who was most widely known for his children's books written under the pen name, Dr. Seuss
- 4 March 1743 - Birth of Johann David Wyss, best known for his novel The Swiss Family Robinson
- 27 March 1982 - Death of Harriet Stratemeyer Adams, head of the Stratemeyer Syndicate, a company which produced the Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, and Bobbsey Twins books throughout the 20th century
- 30 March 1820 - Birth of Anna Sewell, most famous for her novel Black Beauty
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Did you know...
- ...that Pigeon Post (pictured), winner of the first ever Carnegie Medal for children's literature, is the only Swallows and Amazons book that does not feature some sort of sailing adventure?
- ...that Polly Horvath's award-winning 2001 children's novel Everything on a Waffle tells the story of Primrose Squarp, an 11-year old girl whose parents are lost in a typhoon?
- ... that children's book author and illustrator Christopher Manson uses traditional hand tools to create the pine woodcuts that decorate his books?
Featured content
Featured articles
Chinua Achebe
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
Lessons for Children
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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