Mary Norton wrote The Borrowers (1952) about little people borrowing from people. Dodie Smith`s One Hundred and One Dalmatians was published in 1956. In Philippa Pearce`s Tom`s Midnight Garden (1958), Tom opens the garden door at night and enters another era. William Golding`s novel Lord of the Flies (1954) focuses on a group of British boys stranded on an uninhabited island and their disastrous attempt to govern themselves. In the 1950s, the book market in Europe began to recover from the effects of the two world wars. An informal literary discussion group associated with the English faculty of Oxford University was the “Inklings”, with the great fantasy novelists C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien as core members.

C.S. Lewis published the first part of The Chronicles of Narnia series in 1950, while Tolkien is best known as the author of The Lord of the Rings (1954) in addition to The Hobbit. Another author of fantasy stories is Alan Garner, author of Elidor (1965) and The Owl Service (1967). The latter is an adaptation of the Blodeuwedd myth of the Mabinogion, set in modern Wales – it earned Garner the Library Association`s annual Carnegie Medal, which recognizes the best children`s book by a British author of the year. [46] The first comprehensive children`s book was Khar Khar Mahadev by Narain Dixit, which was published in 1957 in one of the popular children`s magazines. Other authors include Premchand and the poet Sohan Lal Dwivedi. [3]:811 In 1919, Sukumar Ray wrote and illustrated absurd rhymes in Bengali, and author and children`s artist Abanindranath Tagore finished Barngtarbratn. Bengali children`s literature flourished in the second half of the twentieth century. Educator Gijubhai Badheka has published more than 200 books of children`s literature in Gujarati, and many are still popular. [3]:812 Other popular authors of Gujarati children`s books included Ramanlal Soni and Jivram Joshi. In 1957, political cartoonist K. Shankar Pillai founded the Children`s Book Trust.

The company became known for its high-quality children`s books, and many of them were published in multiple languages. One of the most important writers is Pandit Krushna Chandra Kar in Oriya literature, who has written many good children`s books including Pari Raija, Kuhuka Raija, Panchatantra and Adi Jugara Galpa Mala. He wrote biographies of many historical figures, such as Kapila Deva. In 1978, the company organized a writers` contest to promote quality children`s literature. The following year, the Children`s Book Trust launched a writing workshop and organized the first International Children`s Book Fair in New Delhi. [3]:809 children`s magazines, available in many languages, have been widely distributed throughout India during this century. [3]:811–820 Ruskin Bond is also a famous Anglo-Indian children`s writer. In 1634, the Italian Pentamerone became the first major published collection of European folktales. Charles Perrault began recording fairy tales in France and published his first collection in 1697.

They were not well received by the French literary society, which considered them suitable only for the elderly and children. In 1658, Jan Ámos Comenius published in Bohemia the informative illustration Orbis Pictus for children under the age of six who were learning to read. It is considered the first picture book produced specifically for children. [19]:7 In 1883, Carlo Collodi wrote the first Italian fantasy novel, The Adventures of Pinocchio, which was translated several times. In the same year, Emilio Salgari, who would become “the adventure writer par excellence for Italian youth”,[41] published for the first time his legendary character Sandokan. In Britain, George MacDonald`s The Princess and the Goblin and its sequel The Princess and Curdie appeared in 1872 and 1883, and Robert Louis Stevenson`s adventure stories Treasure Island and Kidnapped were extremely popular in the 1880s. Rudyard Kipling`s The Jungle Book was first published in 1894, and J. M. Barrie told the story of Peter Pan in the novel Peter and Wendy in 1911. Johanna Spyri`s two-part novel, Heidi, was published in Switzerland in 1880 and 1881. [3]:749 In addition to perpetuating stereotypes about appropriate behaviour and occupations for women and girls, children`s books often lack female characters entirely or only as minor or unimportant characters. [136] In the book Boys and Girls Forever: Reflections on Children`s Classics, academic Alison Lurie says that most 20th century adventure novels, with a few exceptions, feature young protagonists, while female characters in books like Dr.

Seuss`s are usually assigned the gendered roles of receptionists and nurses. [137] The characters of Winnie the Pooh written by A. A. Milne are mostly male, with the exception of the character Kanga, who is a mother of Roo. [138] Even animals and inanimate objects are usually identified as men in children`s books. [136] The virtual absence of significant female characters is paradoxical because of the role of women in the creation of children`s literature. [136] According to a 2011 Guardian article by Allison Flood: “Looking at nearly 6,000 children`s books published between 1900 and 2000, the study, led by Janice McCabe, a professor of sociology at Florida State University, found that men are central characters in 57 percent of children`s books published each year. with only 31% having female main characters. Male animals are central characters in 23% of books per year, while female animals play the main role in only 7.5%. [139] The first Danish children`s book was Niels Bredal`s Der Kinderspiegel in 1568, an adaptation of a courtesy book by the Dutch priest Erasmus.

Ein hübscher und prächtiger Mädchenspiegel, an adaptation of a German book for young women, became the first Swedish children`s book after its publication in 1591. [3]:700, 706 Sweden published fables and a children`s magazine in 1766. A similar project was led by Norwegian scholars Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe, who collected Norwegian fairy tales and published them as Norwegian folktales, often called Asbjørnsen and Moe. By compiling these stories, they preserved Norway`s literary heritage and contributed to the creation of the Norwegian written language. [9]:260 Rudyard Kipling published The Jungle Book in 1894. A major theme of the book is abandonment, followed by care, as in Mowgli`s life, which reflects Kipling`s own childhood. The precursors of the modern picture book were in the last years of the 19th century. He illustrated books of poems and short stories by English illustrators Randolph Caldecott, Walter Crane and Kate Greenaway.