Notes on Children's Literature

Children's Literature is generally defined as writings designed to appeal to children. This

can be problematic because adults are usually the authors, and adults often select the
books for the readers. Most awards for children's books are not voted by the child
audience but by their teachers, parents and editors!

Children's literature or juvenile literature includes stories, books,

magazines, and poems that are enjoyed by 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 stories 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 15th century, a large quantity of literature,
often with a moral or religious message, has been aimed specifically at
children. The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries became known
as the "Golden Age of Children's Literature" as this period included the
publication of many books acknowledged today as classics.

General Characteristics:

 Written for children

 Has children as protagonists
 Does not contain adult themes and is 'appropriate for children' -- a problematic
criterion, as many specialists argue that an issue that children confront (e.g. eating
disorders, drug abuse, sexual abuse, prison, war) is appropriate by the fact that it
is part of their reality; however, while there is a growing market for "truth" books,
children in general still want fun, satisfying adventures to escape into.
 Relatively short; Written in simple language
 Contains illustrations, in particular books intended for younger children
 Plot-oriented with more dialogue and events, fewer descriptions and internal think-
it-over monologues
 Deals with themes of growing up, coming to age and maturation
 Didactic, educational, or attempts to educate children about societal and behavioral
issues; otherwise, contains tales of fantasy and adventure
 Happy ending, or at least a satisfying ending with a sense of justice in which good
triumphs over evil

When people started telling stories for children, rather than for adults, they were mostly
oral fairy tales like Repunzel or Hansel and Gretel which had exciting plotlines as well as
reconfirmed social norms. If you really want some teeth-grinding gruesome stories then
you must go pre-Walt Disney to read fairy tales as they were told before Disney sanitized
them to give the American population a positive feel-good mood after WWII. True justice,
revenge, reward and consequence in flesh and blood were paid in the oldest versions of all
the fairy tales.

Then in the 15th century when the first printing presses came out, stories became much
more formal as they were documented into published books. While they were much more
cost effective than hand-written manuscripts, mass produced books (100 copies as
compared to 20,000 copies today for a first run) were still expensive and only the wealthy
could pay to own such a valuable non-essential item, so the subject matter had to seem as
important as the possession itself. European children were expected to know Latin
regardless of their country of origin, but this would apply only to the wealthy upper class
who would be able to read and own books.

Children were viewed as little people in-training to be adult citizens, not as kids. The
books of this time were didactic, very preachy with morals and cautions which helped to
maintain social order. In 1477, using the new printing presses, the Book of
Curtesye came out. It was about the rules of conduct for a "goodly Chylde." They were
stories about bad kids getting eaten or punished for their bad behavior. If you were a
butcher's son you were going to grow up to be a butcher and remain in that field, without
hope of changing your career, location or status in life. Usually you married within your
social class which was very well-defined according to prestige and wealth and value to the
upper class. Very rarely did a woman get to marry a man in a higher class but a good
marriage with a suitable economic merger was the ideal goal of all women and their
families while they feared marrying beneath them as that would result in life of extreme
physical hardship. The stories were to teach people about how to behave within one's
society. For example in Goldilocks and the three bears, the moral was don't destroy other
people's stuff or go where you don’t belong or you may get torn to bits and eaten as a
consequence. In 1658, the first picture book came out, Orbis Sensualism Pictus (The
Visible World in Pictures). This book was not designed to teach children about how to
behave but more to enlighten them about the physical world around them.

Nowadays stories are getting more away from teaching morals and going towards being
entertaining with plenty of toys and gimmicks to go with them. If we completely lose the
learning about life vicariously and it's all entertainment then we lose some of the magic of
reading just as surely as if the story is all about cautions and warnings.

As you write your story consider the main elements :

 Plot structure with a crisis related to a single central conflict or dilemma (friend
wants you to tell a lie to keep her out of trouble, bully keeps picking on you, your
dog gets lost, your little brother is driving you crazy)
 Setting which is interesting and adds to the story but doesn't necessarily have to
change or cause the central conflict (Playground, Zoo, Backyard, Beach, School
bus, Treehouse)
 Characters that are recognizable types with their own traits and interesting
quirks, but not shallow, flat stereotypes (the Bully, the Nerd, the Princess, the
Class-Clown, the Trouble-maker, the Peace-maker)
 Theme topics that have high interest but are appropriate to young people trying
to understand how humans and the world around works (belonging, making
 friends, teamwork, jealousy, cheating, loyalty, honor, self-esteem, physical danger,
testing the rules)
 Point of View narrator who becomes a character in the story which reflects a
child or child substitute (first person child, third person brother, sister, best friend,
pet or even second person reader-centered adventure)