Overview
The Norton Anthology of Children’s Literature brings together the work of 170 writers and illustrators, tracing the historical development of genres and traditions over 350 years of children’s literature in English. Drawing on new scholarship exploring the social and cultural contexts of children’s literature, this flexible core anthology provides a teachable collection for a wide range of courses—the historical survey and period courses; theme- or topic-based courses; and interdisciplinary courses.
Our first encounters with literature take place in childhood, an age saturated with narratives that range from lullabies and hymns, fairy tales and bedtime stories, alphabets and how-to books, jokes and comic strips, beginning readers and school stories, to novels of fantasy, science fiction, and adventure. As children we listen to many different stories, become acquainted with their rhythms, learn to read narratives and create our own. As adults, we continue this literary tradition through our customs, deep-rooted and beloved, of nurturing, educating, and entertaining children. These customs, and the practices they engender, have profoundly influenced social structures and cultural mores throughout the ages. Indeed, the literature of childhood both establishes the foundations of literacy and interacts with literary history in general.
—from the Preface
Download Section Introductions
Introductions to the Alphabets and Fantasy sections are available for download as PDF files (requires the free Acrobat Reader).
Contact your local Norton representative if you are having problems viewing any of these files.
Copyright © 2005, W. W. Norton & Company. All rights reserved.
XHTML, CSS, 508