32: Children and Children's Literature

• Fables


  Short stories with talking animals as main characters
• Aesop


  Born around 620 BC in Greece
• Anglo-Saxon Literature - Epics

  • Stories told orally in poem or song form
  • Anglo-Saxons spoke "Old English"
• Epic


  A long, narrative poem that celebrates a hero's deeds
• Beowulf


  • The earliest literature, the national epic of the Anglo-Saxon
  • Written in Old English sometime between the 8th and 11th centuries
  • One of the striking features is the use of alliteration
• Beowulf's story


  1. Hrothgar, king of the Danes, built Heorot hall

  2. Grendel attacked the Danes and ruled the hall for 12 years

  3. Beowulf came to help, fought and defeated Grendel

  4. Grendel's mother came to avenge Grendel, Beowulf killed her

  5. Beowulf became king for 50 years

  6. A thief woke the dragon, Beowulf killed it but was mortally wounded
• Characteristics of an Epic


  • [Not provided in the material]
• William Caxton


  The first person to introduce printing press and publishing in Westminster
• Books by William Caxton

  • The Book of Curtayse
  • The Boke (manners and meals in the olden times)
• ABC Books


  Literature in the Medieval Period, used in the Anglican Church as a book of private devotions
• ABC Book/Poem


  • The ABC of Aristotle, or "Lerne or be Lewde" (Learn or Be Ignorant)
• Hornbook


  The first books designed for children to handle, about 3 by 4 1/2 inches long and 2 inches wide, with capital letters, vowels, consonants, and the Lord's Prayer printed on paper covered with transparent horn
• Chapbooks


  Single sheets of paper printed on one side only, containing ballads and tales, sold by itinerant peddlers called chapmen
• Puritan Period


  Marked by the decline of the Renaissance spirit, with books for children influenced by Puritan ideas stressing fear of God, religious instruction, and preparation for death
• Books read by children during the Puritan Period

  • John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress
  • Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe
  • Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels
  • Mallory's Death of King Arthur
• New England Primer


  A small book with about 100 pages, containing the alphabet, words and syllables for spelling lessons, the Lord's Prayer, catechism, hymns and verses, rhymes for each letter of the alphabet
• Didactic Period


  A type of literature written to inform or instruct the reader, especially in moral or political lessons
• Writers of the Didactic Period

  • Jean Jacques Rousseau, author of Emile
  • Thomas Day, author of History of Sanford and Merton
  • Peter Parley, author of informational books
• Orbis Sensualum or Orbis Pictus

  The first illustrated school book, invented by Johann Amos Comenius, Bishop of Moravia, to teach children by letting them see things with their own eyes
• Battledore


  A 4 by 6 1/2 three-leaved cardboard that folded like a pocketbook, with the alphabet and easy-reading matter, popular until 1840
• The Return of Fairy Tales Old and New

  The publication of Grimm's Fairy Tales and Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales revived the interest for imaginative stories