Jane Frank: illustration from Thomas Yoseloff's The Further Adventures of Till Eulenspiegel (1957). Fanciful illustrations are a prominent feature of children's books, especially those for younger children.

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Children's

Children's literature is a literary genre whose primary audience is children, although many books within the genre are also enjoyed by adults. more...

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Basic characteristics

There is some debate as to what constitutes children's literature. In general, the term comprises both those books which are selected and read by children themselves, as well as those vetted as 'appropriate for children' by authorities, e.g. teachers, reviewers, scholars, parents, publishers, librarians, bookstores, and award committees.

Some would have it that children's literature is literature written specially for children; however, many books that were originally intended for adults are now commonly thought of as works for children, such as Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper and Huckleberry Finn. The opposite has also been known to occur, where works of fiction originally written or marketed for children are given recognition as adult books; Philip Pullman's The Amber Spyglass, and Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, for example, both won Whitbread Awards, which are typically awarded to adult novels. The Nobel prize for literature has also been given to authors who made great contributions to children's literature, such as Selma Lagerlöf and Isaac Bashevis Singer. Often no consensus is reached whether a given work is best categorized as adult or children's literature, and many books are multiply marketed in adult, children's, and young adult editions; a prominent example of this is the Harry Potter series, which was published in separate editions for children and adults.

There are a number of problems inherent in children’s literature:

Much of what is commonly regarded as "classic" children's literature speaks on multiple levels, and as such is able to be enjoyed by both adults and children. For example, many people will reread Alice in Wonderland or The Wind in the Willows as adults and appreciate aspects of each that they failed to appreciate when they read the books as children. Many critics regard such multiplicity as having drawbacks, however; an adult may see the adult themes of a book and deem it unsuitable, despite the fact that such themes will likely be lost on children.

One example of this is Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, throughout which the word "nigger" is used liberally. Many people feel that the word's racist and discriminatory connotations make it unacceptable to use anywhere, and particularly in a book aimed at children. Others, however, claim that to call the book racist because of this usage is to miss its point; Huckleberry Finn was after all one of the first American books in which a black character is portrayed as someone to be emulated, in this case serving as the voice of reason for a cast-off urchin and a middle class white boy.