2
Defining Children’s Literature and Childhood
Karín Lesnik-Oberstein
The definition of ‘children’s literature’ lies at the heart of its endeavour: it is a category
of books the existence of which absolutely depends on supposed relationships with a
particular reading audience: children. The definition of ‘children’s literature’ therefore is
underpinned by purpose: it wants to be something in particular, because this is
supposed to connect it with that reading audience—‘children’—with which it declares
itself to be overtly and purposefully concerned. But is a children’s book a book written
by children, or for children? And, crucially: what does it mean to write a book ‘for’
children? If it is a book written ‘for’ children, is it then still a children’s book if it is (only)
read by adults? What of ‘adult’ books read also by children—are they ‘children’s
literature’? As the British critic John Rowe Townsend points out:
Surely Robinson Crusoe was not written for children, and do not the Alice books
appeal at least as much to grown ups?; if Tom Sawyer is children’s literature, what
about Huckleberry Finn?; if the Jungle Books are children’s literature, what about
Kim or Stalky? and if The Wind in the Willows is children’s literature, what about
The Golden Age?; and so on.
Townsend 1980:196Attempts to dismiss categorisation and definition of texts as a side issue which should not
be an end in itself are very problematic when it comes to children’s literature: how do we
know which books are best for children if we do not even know which books are
‘children’s books’? For this is what ‘children’s literature’ means in its most fundamental
sense to every critic who uses the term: books which are good for children, and most
particularly good in terms of emotional and moral values. We can see this view reflected
in Canadian critic Michele Landsberg’s belief that
good books can do so much for children. At their best, they expand horizons and
instil in children a sense of the wonderful complexity of life ...No other pastime
available to children is so conducive to empathy and the enlargement of human
sympathies. No other pleasure can so richly furnish a child’s mind with the
symbols, patterns, depths, and possibilities of civilisation.
Landsberg 1987:34