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The Children's Literature Portal

Egyptian boys reading

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, 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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The Story of Miss Moppet is a tale about teasing, featuring a kitten and a mouse, that was written and illustrated by Beatrix Potter. It was published by Frederick Warne & Co for the 1906 Christmas season. Potter was born in London in 1866, and between 1902 and 1905 published a series of small format children's books with Warne. In 1906, she experimented with an atypical panorama design for Miss Moppet, which booksellers disliked; the story was reprinted in 1916 in small book format. Miss Moppet, the story's eponymous main character, is a kitten teased by a mouse. While pursuing him she bumps her head on a cupboard. She then wraps a duster about her head, and sits before the fire "looking very ill". The curious mouse creeps closer, is captured, "and because the Mouse has teased Miss Moppet—Miss Moppet thinks she will tease the Mouse; which is not at all nice of Miss Moppet". She ties him up in the duster and tosses him about. However, the mouse makes his escape, and once safely out of reach, dances a jig atop the cupboard. Although, critically, The Story of Miss Moppet is considered one of Potter's lesser efforts, for young children it is valued as an introduction to books in general, and to the world of Peter Rabbit. The character of Miss Moppet was released as a porcelain figurine in 1954 and a plush toy in 1973. The book has been published in a Braille version, translated into seven languages, and was released in an electronic format in 2005. First editions in the original format are available through antiquarian booksellers.

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Credit: John Tenniel

Alice, from Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1869), illustrated by John Tenniel

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In this month

2 April 1805 - Birth of Hans Christian Andersen (pictured), Danish author and poet, most famous for his fairy tales
8 April 1911 - Short film Little Nemo released, based on the comic strip
9 April 1768 – Death of Sarah Fielding, author of the first novel in English for children
12 April 1958 - Publication of Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories by Dr. Seuss
16 April 2002 - Chitty Chitty Bang Bang opens in the West End at the London Palladium theatre

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It was the lock of the door which had been closed ten years and she put her hand in her pocket, drew out the key and found it fitted the keyhole. She put the key in and turned it. It took two hands to do it, but it did turn.
And then she took a long breath....She was standing inside the secret garden.

— Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

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WikiProjects

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Literature • Books • Novels

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Wikipedia:WikiProject Children's literature

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Artemis Fowl • Discworld • Fablehaven • Harry Potter • Inheritance Cycle • Lemony Snicket • Redwall • Oz

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Selected biography

J. R. R. Tolkien was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion. He was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford from 1925 to 1945, and Merton Professor of English Language and Literature from 1945 to 1959. He was a close friend of C. S. Lewis—they were both members of the informal literary discussion group known as the Inklings. While many other authors had published works of fantasy before Tolkien, the great success of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings when they were published in paperback in the United States led directly to a popular resurgence of the genre. This has caused Tolkien to be popularly identified as the "father" of modern fantasy literature.

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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?

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Topics

Children's literature and Young adult literature

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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