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Fiction Non-Fiction Poetry Drama Comic Books Cartoon Books: Harry Potter The New York Times
Fiction Non-Fiction Poetry Drama Comic Books Cartoon Books: Harry Potter The New York Times
Despite the widespread association of children's literature with picture books, spoken
narratives existed before printing, and the root of many children's tales go back to ancient
storytellers.[9]:30 Seth Lerer, in the opening of Children's Literature: A Reader's History
from Aesop to Harry Potter, says, "This book presents a history of what children have
In 1962, French historian Philippe Ariès argues in his book Centuries of Childhood that the
modern concept of childhood only emerged in recent times. He explains that children were
in the past not considered as greatly different from adults and were not given significantly
different treatment.[14]:5 As evidence for this position, he notes that, apart from instructional
and didactic texts for children written by clerics like the Venerable Bede and Ælfric of
Eynsham, there was a lack of any genuine literature aimed specifically at children before
children's literature, therefore, tended to be of a didactic and moralistic nature, with the
purpose of conveying conduct-related, educational and religious lessons.[18]:6–8
Early-modern Europe