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Children´s literature in English

By Marileo
  • 1484

    15TH CENTURY

    15TH CENTURY
    William Caxton, publishedThe Fox and the Grapes, it is very appropriate to be worked on in the English class, because the idiom ‘sour grapes’ comes from it. It is used to describe a person who despises what s/he cannot get.

  • Later on, with the rise of Puritanism in England around the 17TH CENTURY children started to be taken into consideration and their literature turned strongly moralistic.

    Later on, with the rise of Puritanism in England around the 17TH CENTURY children started to be taken into consideration and their literature turned strongly moralistic.
    Comenius tried to explain the world in pictures in his book "Orbis Pictus", which revolutionized the pedagogy of the time and led to the use of audio-visual techniques in the classroom.
    Perrault collected tales from the oral tradition and wrote them in a simple and fresh style as Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella.
    These tales are particularly suitable for the English class, because children are already familiar with the plot and this helps them to understand the story and participate.

  • 18TH CENTURY

    18TH CENTURY
    This period saw the translation into English of the classic fairy tales such as Little Red Riding Hood and the beginning of the English novel with Daniel Defoe´s Robinson Crusoe and Jonathan Swift´s Gulliver Travels.

  • 18TH AND 19TH CENTURIES

    18TH AND 19TH CENTURIES
    We can also include some novels or short stories written by important literary authors whose topics make them very interesting and they are part of the history of literature written in English as Lewis Carroll with the publication of Alice´s Adventures in Wonderland, focuses on FANTASY and TALES.

  • 19 TH CENTURY

    19 TH CENTURY
    Oscar Wilde, who published stories with a very strong moralizing aim and a good literary quality.

  • At the beginning of the 20TH CENTURY

    At the beginning of the 20TH CENTURY
    Fantasy books were very popular. An important writer and painted is Beatrix Potter, who created “The Tale of Peter Rabbit”.

  • 19TH CENTURIES

    19TH CENTURIES
    The Grimm Brothers, new versions of Snow White or Tom Thumb can be found in their Children's and Household Tales.

  • 19TH CENTURY

    19TH CENTURY
    Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll, who became the main nonsense writers and combined fantasy with satire and word games, as in Alice in Wonderland.

  • RECENT LITERARY WORKS

    RECENT LITERARY WORKS
    And some which are very interesting since they deal with current sociocultural topics and aspects, and thus, they are close to student's reality as “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”

  • At the end of 19TH CENTURY

    At the end of 19TH CENTURY
    Later, with the Romanticism, was the first time books for children contained fantasy, realism, fun and adventure together with a higher literary level. During this century, many of the classics appeared and because of this, the 19th century is considered to be the Golden Age of English literature to children:

  • OTHERS

    OTHERS
    We can also consider NURSERY RHYMES, SONGS AND RIDDLES part of children's literature. They have authenticity, brevity, repetitions, musicality, and rhythm, and therefore they can be didactically applied in the classroom.

  • 21TH CENTURY

    21TH CENTURY
    JK. Rowling write Harry Potter, a fantasy and magic books about a child who go to a magic school to learn about his powers.