Little Philio] (1989) consists of Philio’s accounts of her daily life, told with great humour,
while Amarante Adler-Seta’s Ta Paramythia tes Sophias [Sophie’s Tales] (1989) is a
collection of folk-tales based on recent oral tradition, which have been assiduously
recorded by the author.
The pioneering New Zealand Librarian, Dorothy Neal White pointed out in her About
Books for Children (1946) that ‘Children read comparatively few books ... If one
estimates one book a fortnight from seven to fourteen years (and actually this [is] a
generous figure) the number read during that period is 416. These four hundred books
often influence a child far more powerfully than parents realise’ (11). Even if this seems
a generous estimate in the days of television and computer games, the influence of those
texts seems undeniable: when it is multiplied across the world, as the essays which
follow demonstrate, showing as many common features as differences, some sense of
the global importance of children’s literature may be gained.
ReferencesHickman, D. (1987) ‘Anno’s All in a Day: an international picture book’, Bookbird 25, 3:5–6.
Melching, M. (1981) ‘Working with children and books in Senegal’, Bookbird 2:7–11.
Segun, M.D. (1992) ‘Children’s literature in Africa: problems and prospects’, in Ikonne, C. et al.,
(eds), Children and Literature in Africa, Ibadan: Heinemann Educational.
White, D.N. (1946) About Books for Children, London: Oxford University Press.
Further ReadingPellowski, A. (1968) The World of Children’s Literature, New York: R.R.Bowker.
Pick, M. (1992) ‘Co-editions of children’s books: international but not (yet) global’, Logos 3/4:186–
191.
St John, J. (1958) The Osborne Collection of Early Children’s Books, 1566–1910, Toronto: Toronto
Public Library.
654 THE WORLD OF CHILDREN’S LITERATURE