Agnes Callard in Asterisk Magazine:
Other than fairy tales — which were, by and large, originally compiled for adult audiences — children’s literature from the past holds little of interest for children today. Consider one of the earliest known examples of a book targeted at children, James Janeway’s A Token for Children from 1671. A typical story in this collection tells us how young a child was when he memorized the catechism, how passionately he cared for the souls of his brothers and sisters, and how obedient and respectful he was with his elders. It might quote at length from one of his prayers and end by describing his peaceful death from the plague at the age of 10. Every story in Token ends in this way, with a boy or girl rewarded for his or her piety with a happy early death.
Things do loosen up a bit over the next century, but narrative fiction directed at children in the 1700s and early 1800s still tends to be heavily didactic and moralistic, featuring stylized descriptions of children inhabiting not a social and political reality but an abstract, idealized world of moral instruction — instruction that they, in turn, receive gladly and obediently. Children today would not know what to make of it.
More here.
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