Many of these languages have speakers numbering in hundreds of thousands rather
than millions; nevertheless, each group has its own culture and its own distinct orature.
These minority groups are often ignored in the professional writing about children’s
orature and literature. By using such sources as the IBBY publications, Bookbird and
Children’s Literature Abstracts, and past issues of Phaedrus, one can locate general
reviews about children’s literature in quite a number of developing countries, but these
are invariably limited to majority languages. Also, the descriptions also tend to be
modelled on European or North American views of children’s literature. Orature for and
by children in the developing countries is scarcely mentioned. Until there is more
research and discussion about the specific ways in which local or national cultures of
the developing countries find expression in the children’s literature and orature of the
past and present, it will remain difficult to compare and contrast children’s literature
and orature in a truly international and multi-cultural manner.
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