Children's Books In Print

To being my research in the revolution of the children stories, I look to the Encyclopaedia Britannica; I was fascinated about the pages and pages of information about children’s stories. It may have actually given me too much information and overloaded me a bit and having to troll through that information could confuse people rather than inform them. I love the idea that people didn’t think that children need to be entertained by books and now it’s one of the highest priorities to get children to read.

As outline in my research brief, before the mid-eighteenth century books rarely were created for children and they were a high income item as they were all individually handmade. Children's reading was generally limited to literature intended for their education and moral lessons rather than for their enjoyment. Such books were religious books, grammar books, and "courtesy books" (which offered instruction on proper behaviour) they were the only early books directed at children. Many authors in the 15th and 16th centuries who wrote 'manuals of good conduct' for children, called 'Books of Courtesy' - but I don't think many boys or girls curled up with them to read them for a laugh. It was during the Renaissance that 'popular literature' was first produced - for adults.

The Ballads of Robin Hood started in the 14th century. The Arthurian Legend was described in the 12th and 13th centuries, retold verbally through generations to follow, written by Mallory in the late 15th Century and then by Tennyson in Victorian times and although these books were aimed at adults,  abbreviated versions were created and children ate them up.
People thought this idea of providing children with books for enjoyment was crazy, but the dawn of writing for children was about to break. Writing for the entertainment of children first appears to have occurred in France, where Charles Perrault wrote 'Mother Goose' for his own children. In it were simple versions of 'Little Red Riding Hood,' 'The Sleeping Beauty' and 'Puss in Boots'. These stories, however, were not his original creations, and had been handed down orally over previous generations.

The early 1800's saw the traditional fairy stories and more rhymes popularised in Henry Cole's 'Home Treasury' series.  In other countries, Grimm’s' Fairy Tales were written in 1823 -26 and those of Andersen in 1846, but, for the most part, stories were the retelling of old sagas and folklore.

Hahaha! I found this Disney movie on YouTube about the truth on Mother Goose about how stories were turned into songs and they were all influenced on actually historic events, Each segment begins with an upbeat performance of the song, follows with a depiction of the historical inspiration, and concludes with a somehow less jolly rendition of the tune. It covers "Little Jack Horner", "Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary", with a clever contrast of amusing animation and serious narration.

References:
Children’s literature. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online Academic Edition. Encyclopædia Britannica, 2011. Web. 19 Oct. 2011. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/111289/childrens-literature>.

lpmangas 2008, Walt Disney - The Truth About Mother Goose (1/2) - 1957, viewed 19 October 2011, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeURETLKf68&feature=related