ON THE HISTORY OF CHILDREN’S LITERATURE
ON THE HISTORY OF CHILDREN’S LITERATURE

Summary/Abstract: Children’s literature has a history as long as childhood itself, but for the longest time, it has not been recognized as a fully formed literary system or as worthy of being studied, possibly because of the delay in the printing and publishing of books for children or maybe due to the general disregard for children. Nevertheless, its history is convoluted, interesting, dominated by the English language and culture and co-dependent to the history of children and childhood itself. Children’s literature was not a response to the philosophical ideas, political interests or the general development of societies and their values, but a mirror of how adults’ perspective on children and childhood has changed. Children’s literature is written by adults for children in accordance to what the authors believed children needed, but through their reading choices, children had the final say. This paper is far from a complete presentation of the history of children’s literature, but rather an attempt at presenting a shortened version of it, with the hope that it will make for an easier understanding of its development.

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