Anyone know about the history of children's literature? I have a weird question.

I think that language has changed, of course it has, and there is nothing wrong with that, but it doesn't hurt to be able to read older texts and gain a meaning from them. Maybe having them read to you or being able to ask somebody about specific words is a classical education in itself.

V Interesting thread OP.

I remember reading 'classics' when I was a child and not understanding lots of what I was reading. So long as I could follow the story, though, I was happy. Looking back, I sort of expected to have large portions of the book that I found indigestible and probably skimmed over.

Now, there is much more emphasis on the child's comprehension (rightly so, IMO), and so it wouldn't be acceptable for a child to skim-read the difficult bits.

Another thing I've just thought of, is that I re-read my favourite books all the time. Last year, DH searched for and finally found and bought for me two that had been my DM's when she was a child (so written 70-80 years ago). When I read them, it was like meeting an old and very dear, familiar friend. I realised that I know whole sections of each book by heart (these are longer 'chapter' books), but then I realised I read them about 8 times a year for about 10 years, so little wonder, really!

Oh, and that's another thing, Books for children didn't used to come with recommended reading ages, and childhood lasted much longer. I was enjoying those books from about 6 to 16 (and beyond!), so my understanding would have changed and grown as I did. It would have started as a basic following the story, and then as time went on, I would have come to understand motives of characters, and understood my own reactions and how they related to the author's intentions for the reader.

Also a hundred or so years ago there would be greater emphasis on self-improvement through worthy literature etc, especially on Sundays when other pastimes were banned or restricted. Regularly listening to the bible at home and at church, books of sermons, classical texts such as the Aeneid and the poetry and classic literature of their own parents generation would have exposed children at that time to a wider vocabulary etc than currently where we have so many other things competing for our attention.

Teaching was different as well, rote learning of poems and epilogues etc. My father can still recite some of the poems he learnt at school in the 1950s for example.

I read a book ages ago about how children learn to read and they showed in the book how children's books are indeed much more simplistic with regards vocabulary words than in previous generations.

It's felt more now that only a few new words should be added every now and again but in previous generations, they didn't "water it down" and in fact big words didn't daunt children, they just learnt them faster.

I don't think you need to go back as far as PPAW, when we read the Worst witch books to the DC the language was noticably more complex than more modern chapter books aimed at younger readers. The DC loved it though so I wonder if as adults we sometimes underestimate children.

I think there is a general trend to think we were brighter/harder working than the younger generation, isn't there some comment from a famous ancient greek along the lines of 'young people today'? At work every time we interview people we are shocked at how little some candidates know but on the other hand some of the ones we actually employ are so bright.

I wonder if another factor is the fact that society has got more casual and e.g. the Today programme covers the Mercury Award. There's less of the 'My knowledge has more value than your knowledge' that you see in some older academics (FIL). So there's less emphasis on complex language in children's books and more on a fun story.

Finally, and almost completely contradictory to the above suggestion, maybe the books we read as children seem more complex is because only the complex and interesting stories survive, whereas we are aware of the books we read now that won't have longevity, probably because they don't have such complex language. Although there is always Enid Blyton!

There lots of possible reasons why, it's just crying out for a PhD student to do some analysis of the text of children's fiction.

And story telling is as old as humanity.

I think literate parents have always read to their children- there are lots of references to reading aloud in books like Little Women and so on.

Do you think PPW was aimed at 6 year olds? I would have thought it was written for an older, self reading audience - but I may be wrong. How much did parents read aloud to their children then? I wouldn't be surprised if that has massively increased in the last 50 years or so and so children would have accessed books later.

I find this endlessly fascinating, I am in my 50s, and I know that I read all sorts of books as a child that my own clever, bookish children couldn't have begun to tackle. I have varying theories, depending on my mood/the phase of the moon.
I think that, certainly in my childhood, there was much less to do. So once it was dark, there were only the available books to plough through. I think as well, that children were expected to do difficult things- certainly nobody ever thought my self esteem would be crushed by not being able to do something. We were expected to struggle- and either succeed or fail- in a way that children nowadays aren't. I also think, more cynically, that it is amazing how many pristine, unread versions of "the classics" you find in second hand bookshops- maybe they were't actually read- just kept neatly on shelves? I always have a wry smile at posted on here who talk enthusiastically about "devouring" Wuthering Heights at 9- memory is very deceiving!