The Children and Young Adult Literature Portal

Children's and young adult literature is that written and/or marketed primarily towards a juvenile audience. While some books are originally intended for a youthful audience, others become associated with children through marketing or tradition. Still others are "crossover" books, read by children and adults alike. Literature addressed directly to children arose in Western Europe in the late 17th century and early 18th century and became a very profitable industry in the 19th. Throughout its 300-year history, children's stories have reflected the values of the societies that produced them.

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Featured article

Make Way for Ducklings is a children's picture book written and illustrated by Robert McCloskey. First published in 1941, the book tells the story of a pair of mallard ducks who decide to raise their family on an island in the lagoon in the Boston Public Garden, a park in the center of Boston, Massachusetts. Make Way for Ducklings won the 1942 Caldecott Medal for McCloskey's illustrations, executed in charcoal then lithographed on zinc plates. Although the book was originally criticized for having a loose plot and poor characterization, it remains popular worldwide even sixty years after its first publication primarily for the enhancing illustrations and effective pacing. The book's popularity has led to the sale of over two million copies and the construction of a statue in the Public Garden of the mother duck and her eight ducklings.

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Selected picture

Credit: Jessie Wilcox Smith

A girl reading, by children's illustrator Jessie Wilcox Smith (1863–1935)

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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
• 15 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

Selected biography

Anna Laetitia Barbauld (pronounced /bɑrˈboʊld/, by herself possibly /bɑrˈboʊ/, as in French) (née Aikin) (20 June 1743 – 9 March 1825) was a prominent eighteenth-century English poet, essayist, and children's author. A "woman of letters" who published in multiple genres, Barbauld had a successful writing career at a time when female professional writers were rare. She was a noted teacher at the celebrated Palgrave Academy and an innovative children's writer; her famous primers provided a model for pedagogy for more than a century. Her essays demonstrated that it was possible for a woman to be publicly engaged in politics, and other women authors emulated her. Even more importantly, her poetry was foundational to the development of Romanticism in England. Barbauld was also a literary critic, and her anthology of eighteenth-century British novels helped establish the canon as we know it today. Barbauld's literary career ended abruptly in 1812 with the publication of her poem Eighteen Hundred and Eleven, which criticized Britain's participation in the Napoleonic Wars. The vicious reviews shocked Barbauld and she published nothing else within her lifetime. Her reputation was further damaged when many of the Romantic poets she had inspired in the heyday of the French Revolution turned against her in their later, more conservative, years. Barbauld was remembered only as a pedantic children's writer during the nineteenth century, and largely forgotten during the twentieth century, but the rise of feminist literary criticism in the 1980s renewed interest in her works and restored her place in literary history.

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Did you know...

• ...that the Cody Caves (pictured) are part of the setting of the children's book, The Kootenay Kidnapper by Canadian author Eric Wilson?
• ...that children's book The Gruffalo was made into a play; it played the National Theater and NYC's Broadway?
• ...that Operation Show Me How was a major Interpol drug bust concerning the transporting of heroin within the covers of the children's book Show-Me-How-I-Can-Paint?

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WikiProjects

Parent projects

Literature, Books, Novels

Main project

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Children's literature

Related projects

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

Selected quote

Trees are all different, as you know, and I am sure some tiresome person must have told you that there are no two blades of grass exactly alike. But in the streets, where the blades of grass don't grow, everything is like everything else. This is why children who live in towns are so extremely naughty. They do not know what is the matter with them, and no more do their fathers and mothers, aunts, uncles, cousins, tutors, governesses, and nurses; but I know. And so do you now. Children in the country are naughty sometimes, too, but that is for quite different reasons. — E. Nesbit, Five Children and It

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Categories

[Slovenian Children's Literature http://sl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedija:WikiProjekt_Slovenska_mladinska_književnoste]

Featured content

Featured articles: Anna Laetitia Barbauld • Anne Frank • Batman • Captain Marvel • Fairy tale • The Hardy Boys • J. K. Rowling • J. R. R. Tolkien • Lessons for Children • Make Way for Ducklings • Mary Martha Sherwood • Nancy Drew • Original Stories from Real Life • Proserpine (play) • Sarah Trimmer • Some Thoughts Concerning Education • The Adventures of Tintin • The Guardian of Education • Thoughts on the Education of Daughters • To Kill a Mockingbird • Tom Swift

Topics

Children's literature and Young adult literature

Children's literature: Book talk • Children's literature canon • Children's literature criticism • Children's literature periodicals • Children's literature timeline • 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 • 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

Things you can do

Add {{Portal|Children and Young Adult Literature|Tom Sawyer 1876 frontispiece.jpg}} to the See also section of related articles. Tag the talk pages of related articles with {{WikiProject Children's literature}} Join WikiProject Children's literature and list yourself as a Participant in the project. Cleanup: A cleanup listing for this project is available, updated by WolterBot. More information... Deletion discussions: listed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Literature Notability: Articles with notability concerns, listed at WikiProject Notability Rate the Unassessed articles in the Children's literature WikiProject. Requested articles: Create a requested article on literature Stubs: Improve a stub-class article

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