Children’s Literature – The Very Short Introductions Podcast – Episode 17

[Music] Hi and welcome to a very short instruction. From ancient Greece to branding, globalization to Homer and logic to fashion, we'll showcase a concise and dynamic insight into a range of diverse topics for whatever your curiosity may lead you. So here is today's very short introduction. Hello, my name is Kim Reynolds. I am the professor of children's literature at Newcastle University in the north of England and author of Children's Literature, a very short introduction. Once upon a time, Sam familiar? That's because just about every person living today read or listen to stories when they were young, making children's literature a kind of social glue that binds nations and cultures. From the earliest days of publishing, children's stories have had transnational audiences too. From an Anci Spider-Man through Pinocchio and Pippi Longstucking, the Moomin's Miffy, Hello Kitty, the Little House Books of Laura Ingalls Wilder and Harry Potter, children's literature has helped to shape generations of children in all parts of the world. There's been writing for children at least since ancient Rome. The first book off Caxton's Press was Esaubs Fables, often considered to be a children's book. By the 18th century, publishing for children was a significant commercial business. And today, children's literature is one of the UK's major culture industries, globally successful books such as Winnie the Pooh, the Harry Potter series and Warhorse contribute substantially to Britain's economy, not least through multiple adaptations and related merchandise. Children's books are often where publishers, authors, illustrators and designers experiment with new ways to tell stories, and new ways of expanding what books are and can do. Children's books ushered in affordable developments in color printing, flaps, movable books, even smells and sounds. Today's information technologies are being used to make fully animated and interactive books for even the youngest readers. And while other areas of book publishing have largely turned their backs on visual elements of narrative, children's picture books, comics and graphic novels have evolved into a highly sophisticated art form. Children's literature also does a great deal of cultural work. Books have for long been used to help children understand themselves, others, and the big issues that confront us. For instance, in Morissendax, where the wild things are, Max goes to the land of the wild things on a day when he's been out of control. His time as King of the Wild Things helps him learn to manage himself. Mary Lennox heals herself under cousin Colin by taking over the secret garden, and since the Spanish Civil War, third and end the bull, has shown that it is better to smell the flowers than to fight. Meanwhile, Dr. Susie's Lorrex has been speaking for the trees for half a century, and today's children's books deal with a vast range of topical and personal issues from refugees to sexualities. The books a society creates for its children help them learn the values, codes, beliefs, basic skills and accepted ways of behaving they need to negotiate the world. Often this means passing on traditions and contributing to the continuity of culture, which is why certain stories are handed on from generation to generation. In this way, whole areas of narrative are preserved and reinvigorated in writing for children. That's where we're most likely to find folk and fairy tales, nursery rhymes, nonsense, riddles, myths and legends. But there's also a long history of commandeering children's books to bring about social revolution. The Puritans, the Nazis, the Soviets, General Frankl and Chairman Mao all recognize that books were an important way of engaging the rising generation. They suppressed children's books they regarded as subversive or ideologically impure, and produced others that wanted their own worldviews. The suppression of children's books continues. The young adult books of American writer Judy Bloom, for instance, are among the most banned books in the world. It's only relatively recently that children's literature has become a dynamic academic field. For long, it was assumed that the books of childhood is something to outgrow rather than something that should grow with you. Their lack of status has often been central to their innovation. In the McCarthy era in the USA, some of the writers who were banned from Hollywood and other influential roles found work writing for children, and they produced many books of exceptional literary and artistic merit. These books also passed on the liberal values that were then under attack to a generation that grew up to champion civil rights feminism and peace. Children's literature is then a curious and paradoxical cultural space, innovative and conservative. It's often overlooked, but also highly regulated. My very short introduction demonstrates these qualities and many more of the features that make children's literature a subject everyone should know about.