Talk:Children's literature

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Portal:Children and Young Adult Literature
 Children and Young Adult Literature Portal
This article is part of WikiProject Children's literature, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to children's and young adult literature on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit one of the articles mentioned below, or visit the project page, where you can join the project.
??? This article has not yet received a type classification.
??? This article has not yet received a rating on the quality scale.
??? This article has not yet received a rating on the importance scale.
Tasks you can do:

Contents

[edit] Article location

Article was moved from children's authors per wikipedia naming conventions on pluralization, easy linking and familiarity. --maveric149

[edit] Need children's authors have intended a child audience?

The following comes from Talk:Children's authors:

A number of authors on this list -Alcott, Defoe, Dickens, Bunyan, etc. were not writing for children. What are the criteria for this list?

My view is that it should include authors of 'children's books', even if they were not the primary target - e.g. Robinson Crusoe. I think the titles should be listed as well.


-- dml

[edit] the list of famous works

In my opinion, the sections entitled "Famous Works of Children's Literature" and "Popular Series" are highly imbalanced: Bridge to Terabithia is nowhere near as famous as the other books on the list, I've never even heard of the Lone Pine series, and Noggin the Nog, as far as I can tell, is primarily a television series. The lists in their current form give a rather peculiar sampling of children's literature. Rather than deleting these sections, perhaps they can be split off into seperate articles, so that they can be properly expanded and discussed? --Woggly 08:37, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Hmmmm, hard to know. Yeah, "Famous Works" is way too thin, and while B to T is a notable book, it's not on the same level as the others. And the series you object to are unknown to me as well. But it's hard to have an article on a type of literature without listing the notable works and series. If you want to split them out as list articles, that's fine.....the lists will need serious expansion, though. And frankly I still think this article will have to mention the most famous examples (Harry Potter, Oz, Narnia, the Hobbit, and a good number more) because otherwise the article is too abstract. That's my two cents. :-) Jwrosenzweig 19:32, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Thanks for responding. I agree with the spirit of your response, some books are so famous that not to mention them in this article would be equivalent to an oversight, for example, Alice in Wonderland. But perhaps they should be written in, as opposed to merely listed. I think this would be more encyclopedic, and also discourage people from just popping in to add their favorite book to the list.
For now in any case, I am taking the liberty of removing those books that seem to me to be clearly out of place here, and perhaps I'll add a couple of classics like Pinocchio, Winnie-the-Pooh, Pippi Longstocking... If anyone disagrees with me that these are cannonical children's books, they are free to join the discussion here. --Woggly 05:45, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I'm removing Tim All Alone (1956) by Edward Ardizzone from the list, nothing personal against Tomandlu, I'm simply trying to keep the list as canonical as possible and as clean as possible from people's personal favorites that are not that well known. I'll leave the Alan Garner reference on the list, though I still don't think he's as famous as the other authors, he seems to have a following here on Wikipedia. My personal favorite children's author by a long shot is Diana Wynne Jones, and she's not on the list, because I don't think she's known enough around the world. The place to add your favorite author who is not necessarily famous worldwide is List of children's literature authors, linked to an article, and if there isn't one, write it!

When I edited the list, I selected roughly one book for each decade of the last century, plus a few that to my knowledge are considered seminal. Granted that one person's opinions are not enough to determine what is "well known" or "famous": if anyone takes issue with my selections, they are welcome to join the discussion on this page, please! You are also free to offer criteria for selecting books for the list. In my opinion, at the very least, books added to this list should be important enough to have their own page on Wikipedia. Winning an award such as the Newbery Medal or the Carnegie Medal is too wide a criterion for inclusion on the list. Same for the Kate Greenaway award (which, by the way, does not yet have its own page here on Wikipedia and ought to. If I'm not mistaken it's a British award for illustration roughly equivalent to the Caldecott).

I'd just like to note that all the books currently on the list, with the probable exception of The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, have been translated into Hebrew. So that's at least one small measure of their worldwide impact that I can contribute from my personal experience.--Woggly 07:06, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)


No problem with me if you remove the Ardizzone ref. - I didn't know about the list of children's authors entry. (I've already stuck him on there).
I can't help thinking that, given the above list, the presence of the list on this page is unnecessary. I understand your reason for having one, but I suspect that a list of canonical writers is always going to be a little subjective.
BTW what do you think of adding a list of children's illustrators page?
BTW I'll make an entry for the Kate Greenaway award. --Tomandlu 10:48, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I also thought the list was unnecessary, but if you rifle through the article's history you'll see that similar lists have been deleted from this list before and then added again. Note also Jwrosenzweig's comment higher up on this page. So maybe it's better to have a list that might require some editing and culling occasionally, than to leave a gap that invites hasty contributions.
Perhaps if a link to the list of children's literature authors was emphasised in someway? (placed high in the page?) - after all the canonical writers will/should crop up in the main article anyway. Still, as you point out, the list keeps reappearing anyway... Oh, well. BTW I've added a couple of (IMHO;) canonical authors - Enid Blyton and E Nesbit -- Tomandlu 10:54, Apr 29, 2004 (UTC)
As popular as she is in the UK, Enid Blyton is virtually anonymous in the USA and other countries. I did give her a mention in the paragraph regarding book series. Not sure about the canonical stature of E. Nesbit either, though she is fabulous and I love her books. But I won't continue fiddling with the list, this could go on forever. I keep thinking of new books to add, like Heidi and Where the Wild Things Are: enough is enough. --Woggly 11:21, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)
ah - I wasn't aware that Blyton was so obscure outside the UK (which highlights another problem with a canonical list). BTW we also seem to be missing any mention of Dr Seuss -- Tomandlu 11:50, Apr 29, 2004 (UTC)
Oh, and the list is linked to the phrase "many authors" in the second paragraph, I thought that was pretty prominent...
I was more thinking of something like - 'For a list of children's authors, see List of children's literature authors'.. Hmm, perhaps a new page of List of children's books? -- Tomandlu 11:50, Apr 29, 2004 (UTC)
I don't think 'the list keeps reappearing' is a good enough reason, personally. A list that might be good would be 'Children's Books Famous for Being Major Historical Turning Points'. It might include, say, Orbis Pictus, A Little Pretty Pocket-Book, Cat in the Hat, The Hobbit, Annie on My Mind, and so on. But there are so many criteria for fame, or importance (I saw the conversation above and thought 'but BtoT won the Newbery and is taught in every fifth grade in the US! and every English schoolchild knows Blyton! Whereas Struwwelpeter has historical importance and no popular fame at all! What does famous mean, anyway?). Given the vagueness of the term, a general, unannotated, chronologically-ordered list which includes both Cat in the Hat and The Weirdstone of Brisingamen isn't actually useful. They're both famous, but for very different reasons -- and to a certain extent the very fact that they make it onto the list of children's literature authors and their pages don't get deleted indicates a certain amount of fame. The award-winning books should get linked from the various award pages, as they get created, and the popular culture books (Nancy Drew, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone) are linked all over the place. Shouldn't this list just get deleted, and then redeleted every time it's created, unless somebody decides to replace it with a more meaningfully designated list such as the historical turning points list, or something else that has meaningful criteria for inclusion? Deborah-jl 05:02, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Right, it's been three months since I made the suggestion, and nobody's argued. I'm implementing. Deborah-jl 08:56, 11 May 2005 (UTC)
Sorry for not noticing your suggestion up to now. This article is important to me, but I don't always keep tabs on changes. The list you deleted was quirky and needed pruning, but your new list did not strike me as a huge improvement. I think you deleted too many important items (such as "The Wizard of Oz"); on the other hand, I've never even heard of "Annie on my Mind", and your criterion for what makes it a historical turning point strikes me as peculiar. Why not first children's book written by a woman, or a racial minority, or first anticolonial children's book... the winds of time are felt in children's literature just as they are in every other aspect of culture. I feel that the books on the list should be books that contributed significantly to the international canon of children's literature, whatever that means. I do agree that justification for the items on the list is more important than plot summaries, and that this should aim to be some sort of historical timeline rather than a list of favorites. But I think you went a bit too far with your deletions. I originally tried to select books that were widely translated and considered canonical not only in the United States; over the course of time, people tend to add their favorites and the American bias re-emerges. (Not that I'm not biased, I'm just differently biased, and slightly more internationally oriented). I'm reinstating some books that I still feel are seminal. "The Wizard of Oz", for example, is a quest like "The Hobbit" and about a child travelling to another world like "The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe"; it predates both these books by several decades, and was more widely translated; it is considered one of the great American classics for children; doesn't it deserve a place of honor on an historical timeline? --Woggly 18:41, 12 May 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for the feedback. The question is, then, should the list be of classics or historical turning points? I'm happy to add more; the books I added were the ones for which I could come up with reasons for their importance. I can go into source citation for why I chose the books I did -- I'm happy to do so, in fact -- but suffice to say the children's literature scholars consider "Annie on my Mind" to be an important book. (First book written by a woman is less so -- many victorian children's books were written by women. Early children's books with non-Caucasian charaters presented as non-alien; well, that would be important, and adding both "The Snowy Day" and "Stevie" -- the second having been written in response to the first -- is probably a good idea.) But it looks like we think the list has two distinct purposes. I think it should be a list of historically important books that changed the direction of children's literature, and you think it should be a list of canonical books in the sense of books that people have heard of and still read. Perhaps we need both, and they should both be removed from the page and linked as separate? "list of canonical children's books" and "list of historical turning points in children's literature". Because the two lists are fundamentally different. "Orbis Pictus" is important, but not canonical; "Pippi Longstocking" is canonical but perhaps (?) less important. (By the way, I agree that this list is too English-language focused, and I took out too many of the works in trnalsation, but when I couldn't think of a reason for their importance other than being classics I removed them.) Deborah-jl 13:07, 15 May 2005 (UTC)
Woggly, per our ancient discussion, I'm creating two new lists: Children's Literature Timeline and Children's Literature Canon. I think this article should be primarily descriptive, and shouldn't include any lists except as in-line examples. That being said, I suspect my article titles need to be, er, wikified? And you're far more of a wiki expert than I. Deborah-jl 22:57, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
I think a List of children's book illustrators is a wonderful idea, lets start one! --Woggly 10:37, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)
On second thought, there's a List of illustrators that already exists, I don't think the distinction between children's book illustrators and other illustrators is significant enough to merit a second list. --Woggly 10:37, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)
fair point -- Tomandlu 10:54, Apr 29, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] External Links

The following links have been moved here from the main page:

If you believe any of these should be replaced per Wikipedia:External links please discuss it here first. brenneman(t)(c)

I think that page at the Book Award Annals shows what is currently considered good children's literature, since it lists children's books that have been nominated for more than one award for children's literature. It doesn't speak directly to the point of the article, though. Still, I think this would be appropriate:
It's interesting that these books are never considered for awards as "Literature" without the "Children's" qualifier, except for Sci-fi/Fantasy awards. Does that say something about the Sci-fi/Fantasy genre? Or about our perception of children's literature?
KennyLucius 18:01, 2005-08-19 (UTC)
Certainly that page shows a subset of what is considered good children's literature, though there's far more than that available (and far more books not listed there which have won more than one award). A picturebook or book for much younger children, for example, is very unlikely to win more than one award (though there are exceptions, such as A visit to William Blake's Inn). This isn't because they aren't as good, but because there are fewer available awards. In the ALA (source of the majority of US children's lit awards), there are awards for age category (more or less -- the Caldecott isn't strictly age bound) and for certain ethnic categories (and there are bizarre internal politics making it difficult though not impossible to get more than one of those). So many of the books that win more than one award win an ALA award and a genre-specific award from a group that has a children's lit section in its genre awards. In fact, you will find if you investigate that more of those Sci-Fi fantasy swards listed are child-specific. A few aren't but in general you'll find that SF&F readers are much more likely to admit to reading children's fiction than general readers, because of the intricacies of that culture. The Hugos, for example, which are rankings of general popularity by the SF&F fans who attend Worldcon, have had children's lit nominees for some time (although no winners until HP). Deborah-jl 00:52, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
Perhaps more to the point, there are some surprising absences on that site which make me distrust it a wikipedia-worthy link. Where's the Boston Globe / Horn Book awards, which are extremely important US awards? Where's the Carnegie and the Greenaway? Deborah-jl 00:57, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
Yes, I suppose those awards should be listed. Perhaps they will be in the future. It is unlikely that we will ever see a publicly-available database that lists every awarded childrens book, though. Sometimes you just have to use what is available, or nothing at all.
I don't understand why you distrust it as a wikipedia-worthy link. The guidelines are pretty clear. Do you sense some questionable motive behind the absense of those awards?
I have often thought that the fantasy genre is almost identical to the Children's genre. Certainly there are fantasy books that are "adult-only", and children's books that are not fantasy (or even fiction); but they often coincide. I was wondering why that list doesn't show an even more pronounced correlation, and I think the answer is in the values of each genre. Both seek to present an obviously fictional situation that illuminates or accentuates some facet of our reality. Those awards for Children's books look for a fictional situation that can be grasped by a child, that stimulates a child's mind, and in some way expands the child's real-world understanding or sophistication. The Fantasy awards are mostly concerned with the same thing (even the fan-based awards) except that the age restriction is absent. Consequently, a book that wins both a children's award and an award not restricted to children probably has several levels: a "surface" narrative that is interesting and entertaining to the unsophisticated, an emotional or political narrative that is meaninful to adults, and probably a quality that appeals to the extremely literate (allegorical or symbolic narrative).
None of that is relevant to the article, I suppose, but it is interesting. Perhaps if BAA adds more children's awards to its database, a pattern will emerge. I hope so, because books that work for children as well as adults really rock my cradle. A mix of simplicity and profundity...okay, I have to stop now ;-) KennyLucius 15:58, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Why were my links removed?

I added the following links to the page which were removed by user User:Heligoland without explanation. These links all provide a useful perspective. The African link in particular helps to give the article a more balanced worldwide view. Do other contributors agree that these links are worthy of inclusion?

Just a quick note, since it seems I am being portrayed as Mr Nasty at the moment, I'd just like to say the links were removed in accordance with WP:NOT - Wikipedia is not a place for mere collections of External Links. Wikipedia has something in the region of 7,500 external links added every day and there is a need to rationalise external links, no matter how relevant. There is a need for a small number of precise, useful websites, and with important subjects such as this, a need to refrain from adding multiple links even though they may be relevant. A link to the Open Directory Project (dmoz) linking into the relevant category or categories is a more sensible suggestion for a subject where there can be dozens if not hundreds of links that could arguably be described as relevant.
Whilst I do understand the frustration Dahliarose feels at my removal of external links, there does need to be a line drawn, otherwise tomorrow, another edits could easily come along, add another 6 websites, argue that they are relevant and nothing would be done. If this were to continue, after a month you could easily have an External Links section a couple of hundred external links long, and with a subject like this, all linking to useful and relevant sites. Kind Regards - Heligoland | Talk | Contribs 13:50, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Literary status

Should any mention be made of how children's literature has come to be accepted as a legitimate genre (and even field of study) by literary critics? I've just written a brief article on Roger Sale, whose Fairy Tales and After was one of the first books of literary criticism dealing respectfully with authors like Baum and Beatrix Potter. I was wondering if there was room for some treatment of this here (though I admit that, outside of Sale's wonderful book, I don't know much more about this topic and would need either help or some additional research). Jwrosenzweig 00:05, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

I think the right thing to do is to make a children's lit theorists page that's categorized as litcrit (and the litcrit articles need tons and tons of work) and link to it from here. It should cover the major schools of thought (childist crit, childism==Orientalism, etc), the major theorists in the field (Peter Hunt, Perry Nodleman, Lissa Paul, Walter Moebius, etc), and maybe some of the important journals (ChLAQ, LandU) and associations (ChLA) as well. ...Am I volunteering to start? Maybe. Deborah-jl 04:31, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Define your terms

At the moment the table is on the useless side. Who decides, on what criteria, whether a given book is, as opposed to fits some characteristics of, a children's book, an adults' book or even a for-everyone book?

And I'm surprised anyone ever tried to pass off The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time as a children's book, considering the amount of bad language in it. -- Smjg 09:58, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

This page has needed revamping which I've promised for months now; I think it's time to get down to it. You're right that we need to be more specific about what this chart defines, which is to say that these are undefined terms, used loosely to mean "chi;dren's literature is defined as those books which are written for, marketed to, bought by, taught to, or win awards for children". And the table is to show how nobody's single definition works. For example, loads of books fit all those criteria which are, as you say, full of bad language. Curious Incident is vatiously marketed as a YA or adult book but is also pushed at children. And when this page and the YA page have finally been revamped, it will be time to make them play together a little better. Sigh. Deborah-jl 21:43, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject

Is there any interest here in a WikiProject for the family of articles comprising children's and young adult literature coverage? I've made a proposal for a WikiProject, and I encourage people to view my proposal, edit it if they like, and sign up. It would be great to put an organised effort into rethinking these pages.

Wikipedia:Wikiproject/List_of_proposed_projects#Children.27s_Literature

Deborah-jl Talk 06:11, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The Fountainhead

I've cut out The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand from the list. She stated herself (in The Romantic Manifesto and elsewhere) that the novel was not intended to be didactic. There are no fantasy elements, and no adventure in the literal sense. LaszloWalrus 09:22, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Trends in Children's Literature

All. How about on the main page some kind of section on trends in children's literature. There may be a number of trends. Some of which I am aware are:

  1. the increased sexualization of children's literature,
  2. the increased sexualization of the children's literature nominated and chosen for awards, and
  3. the creation of recommended lists of books that are "not the most literary" but have highly sexualized content.

Now some know that I have a certain interest in having "safe libraries," but I'm setting that aside here. Here I am raising the legitimate issue of whether to add a section on trends in children's literature to a wiki page about children's literature. And now, to ensure this proposed section does not contain my POV, I hereby provide several very mainstream sources for trends in children's literature. And note that while some of the links in this list may point to my web site, for the real wiki page these sources should be direct links to the articles, not links from my group's site at SafeLibraries.org.

  1. Judging a Book by Its Cover: Publishing Trends in Young Adult Literature, Cat Yampbell, The Lion and the Unicorn; Sep 2005; 29:3; Children's Module, The Johns Hopkins University Press, pp348-372, at p350-351:
"As more and more edgy fiction is being published, the books are dealing with issues that hadn't been dealt with before: oral sex, male rape, incest. There seem to be no boundaries any more." .... Young Adult Literature has broken nearly every boundary of acceptable subject matter in trying to address real-life problems and intrigue teen readers.
  1. Young Adult Fiction: Wild Things, by Naomi Wolf, The New York Times, 12 Mar. 2006.
Yet if [a] parent opened one, he or she might be in for a surprise. .... [S]ex saturates the "Gossip Girl" books.... This is not the frank sexual exploration found in a Judy Blume novel, but teenage sexuality via Juicy Couture, blasé and entirely commodified. .... The problem is a value system in which meanness rules, parents check out, conformity is everything and stressed-out adult values are presumed to be meaningful to teenagers. .... Sex and shopping take their places on a barren stage, as though, even for teenagers, these are the only dramas left.
  1. Laura Miller, "Why Teachers Love Depressing Books," The New York Times Book Review, August 22, 2004 p12(L) col 01
Adults, she suspects, secretly resent the sheltered, enchanted world children inhabit and under the pretext of preparing them for life's inevitable difficulties, want to rub their noses in traumas they may never actually experience and often aren't yet able to comprehend. All the better to turn them into miniature grown-ups, little troupers girded to face a world where they have no one to count on but themselves. .... Daniel Handler, author of the best-selling Lemony Snicket series, told me recently in an interview, results from a "wrong-headed belief that the more misery there is, the more quality there is, that the most lurid, unvarnished stories are closest to the truth."
  1. Rebecca Hagelin, "Taking Back Our Homes," April 2006.
Gossip Girls .... recurring themes are incest and graphic sex among children. .... a list of those recommended by the American Library Association for ages 12-14. Good teachers, well-meaning teachers, hand out such lists at the end of every school year.... sexual encounter between fourth graders. .... a 14-year-old boy who describes, in detail, watching his first homosexual encounter. .... get to page four for the first of many uses of the term "motherf---in." .... sometimes when Susie is upstairs being a good little girl reading her book, her mind is being filled with rot.

What do you all say? --SafeLibraries 00:50, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

And what about "street lit," "gansta lit," and "authentic lit"? You know a lot of communities now are facing this -- kids getting sexually inappropriate books because it's "authentic" and "they are going to learn about anal rape anyway, where better then in a learning environment." Point being this is definitely of general interest. --SafeLibraries 00:56, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

What about responses to this trend, other than the article presented above, like Parents Against Bad Books in Schools or PABBIS? --SafeLibraries 01:06, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Another trend might be authors blogging. Like AS IF! Authors Support Intellectual Freedom. There's a positive trend. --SafeLibraries 03:50, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Globalization

The article seems to describe only English-language (or well-known translated) stories, ommitting such non-English classics as Kornel Makuszyński (Koziołek Matołek, (Polish)), Julian Tuwim and Jan Brzechwa (Polish poetry for children), Henryk Sienkiewicz (In Desert and Wilderness*, Polish), Zbigniew Nienacki (Pan Samochodzik*, Polish), Alfred Szklarski (Tomek Wilmowski*, Polish), Tove Jansson (Moomins*, (Finnish)), Kir Bulychev (Alice, Girl from the Future*, Russian), Michael Ende (The Neverending Story, German) or Astrid Lindgren (Pippi Longstocking, (Swedish)), just to name a few examples. This needs to be addressed. PS. Through English, I find the ommissions of Frances Hodgson Burnett (The Secret Garden), Lewis Carroll (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland), A. A. Milne (Winnie-the-Pooh), Lucy Maud Montgomery (Anne of Green Gables), J. R. R. Tolkien (The Hobbit*) or Jules Verne (Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea*) glaring as well. Yes, aruably, some of them may classify more as Young adult literature then children's (I marked those with an asterix), but the fact remain that this is very English-centric and even so, rather incomplete.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  16:14, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Great Contributions to Children's Literature

This list is completely unbalanced. The last two authors are still living. They might be well known in America but certainly from an English perspective their contribution is limited. What's happened to all the greats such as Beatrix Potter, Lewis Carroll, C. S. Lewis, Tolkien, etc?) This article should perhaps just have a simple listing of children's authors, perhaps divided into categories. It is not the role of an encylopedia to make subjective judgements about who has made a great contribution. Perhaps there should be separate lists for English, American, French, German, authors, etc. subdivided into living and dead. The contribution of children's authors who concentrate mainly on books for pre-school children has also been completely ignored (eg, the Ahlbergs, Mick Inkpen, Jill Murphy, de Brunhoff's Babar books, Rod Campbell). Dahliarose 11:37, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Criteria for inclusion of external links

I have removed these links from the main page. In view of the comments from user Heligoland if we are only going to have a restricted number of links then they will need to be carefully chosen. I don't see the relevance of including links about writing books for children on a page about children's literature. The children's story hour link seems somewhat trivial.

I proposed some further links in the External links section above but so far there has not been any discussion on the subject so I am copying them below. I would suggest that some of these links should be included in preference to the three links above.

Dahliarose 10:39, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

These two links have been added to the page, neither of which seem to be particularly noteworthy. I've included them here just in case anyone thinks there is a particular case for including them.

Dahliarose 00:12, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Problems" of children's literature

I found this statement a bit strange: "There are a number of problems inherent in children’s literature". The items then listed such as meanings on multiple levels and ideologies that are no longer accepted are not necessarily "problems." I think that there is a POV issue here - shouldn't the page describe children's literature rather than identify its "problems"? Moreover the statement "many critics regard such multiplicity as having drawbacks" is stunningly wrong - literary scholars and reviewers alike clearly prefer books such as Alice in Wonderland that appeal to both children and adults. The whole section is riddled with "many people" and "others" - who are these "many people" and these "others"? Perhaps some credible sources would be in order. Awadewit 20:48, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

While you do have a point, the approach which the writer took for that portion is ok. If you read it, which you have, you'll notice the neutral way it tackles those problems. The first statement is a little POVish, however, the text to follow utilizes that idea to make it safe. It states that yes there are problems in Children's literature, only if you see them as problems. The inability to grasp the subtle moments of Alice and Wonderland. Flipping through Pullman's Dark Material's Trilogy, and not grasping the ideas of atheism, and how it's theories would be 'blasphemous' to the Spiritually Guided. Accepting Twain's use of the word 'nigger' so much as to put the reader in that exact time of history. What we have here is a definition through attack and defense. It's not wrong to present it as 'problems' for there are problems with Children's literature. Not everyone wants to draw the line between content, and meaning, you know? It's for that reason that a book like 'Snow falling on Cedars' was banned in Peel Region's (Mississauga and Brampton, Ontario) Catholic District School Board. Parents didn't like the content, and the Board couldn't justify it through the use of meaning beyond the content. So the way this article was written does exactly that. It presents it as a problem, only if one can't get past the concrete content, and realize the greater point: It's not the content that is important, only what the content is there to prove.

As for the credible sources? Well, pick up a newspaper sometimes, and hunt for any articles about Children's Lit. If those articles don't hit the marker, then I don't know what to say. (For the record, those articles usually talk about exactly what I did. Content and how it's unexceptable to some parents, regardless of the meaning it may provide. Similar to the example I've just gien. If you want to research it, the book is 'Snow falling on Cedars', and it was banned in the Dufferin Peel Roman Catholic Seperate School Board, of the Peel Region of Ontario. There's your 'others' and 'many people', if you care enough. *smiles* 74.12.10.186 13:31, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Great Contributions to Children's Literature, yet again

What we need to do with this section is to reference/quote some major lists of award winners, best-sellers, etc. In other words, cite examples which are verifiable and notable (those qualities which together constitute Wikipedia's proxy for "objective". See WP:VERIFY and WP:NOTE ). -- 201.50.248.179 11:38, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

How about classics from the 18th and 19th century, which precede literary awards and/or bestseller lists? "Pinnochio", "Alice in Wonderland", "Peter Pan", "The Wizard of Oz" - none of these books won the Newbery or made it to the NYTimes bestseller list. --woggly 13:07, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
A fair point. I'd suggest that we reference some big-name lists of such works ("New York Public Library's list of most popular children's books" or some such), again as a proxy for "objectivity". -- 201.50.248.179 02:25, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
On the other hand, I do occasionally see the high sales figures of such works the McGuffey Readers, Pilgrim's Progress, Uncle Tom's Cabin, or Common Sense mentioned, so somebody keeps track of such things at least some of the time, and there's some possibility of referencing these numbers in the article. -- 201.50.248.179 02:32, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
Something definitely needs to be done: currently it has no more encyclopedic validity than a list saying "my favourite books". A list of award winners might be good, so long as it was presented as "a list of award winners", not something more. If a list such as the one is to appear, it is very tricky: a respected source needs to be found which singles out those books for those reasons. (And then we need to be sure we aren't violating list copyright).Putting things into subjective categories isn't what Wikipedia is for. Notinasnaid 14:10, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
"A list of award winners might be good, so long as it was presented as 'a list of award winners', not something more." -- Agreed. I'd say that we want several (ideally "many") such lists, so readers can both get a diversity of opinions and see which books appear on several lists. -- 201.50.248.179 02:25, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Content of this Article

All the people of Wikipedia who threw this article together should be absolutely proud. You've done an amazing job at not only keeping it neutral (Your focus on certain problems in Children's Lit, the argument against the content, but the point of the content's placement and it's importance) but using that same neutrality insomuch that it defends the books for their content.

I thank you guys because for once someone, rather many ones, understand the point to children's literature. Notably, your connection of the use of the word 'nigger' within Huckleberry Finn. This is a very key element to the book's setting, themes, and the mindset of that era. You've managed to get one of the most important literature-based articles dead on.

Be proud guys: Considering the number of fucked up articles on this website, this is one more that should be put on the good list.

[edit] Removal of sentence

I am sure this sentence means something to the person who added it, but it doesn't read well to me:

Promoting and book talking children's literature has produced several websites, blogs, and podcasts devoted to the subject.

"Book talking" is not a verb. None of this gives a citation. And what is notable about the fact that children's literature (or the analysis of it, not clear from context) now has websites devoted to it? There are movies based on kidslit, and litcrit adult books as well. How does this sentence add to our understanding of the subject? I am open to persuasion and welcome clarification. BrainyBabe 15:41, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../c/h/i/Talk%7EChildren%27s_literature_0c9a.html"