Books written for children
Perhaps the most common definition of children’s literature is those books intentionally written for children. Nancy Anderson, associate professor in the College of Education at the University of South Florida in Tampa,^[1] defines children’s literature as all books written for children, “excluding works such as comic books, joke books, cartoon books, and nonfiction works that are not intended to be read from front to back, such as dictionaries, encyclopedias, and other reference material”.^[2] Some of this work is also very popular among adults. J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series was originally written and marketed for children, but it was so popular among children and adults that The New York Times created a separate bestseller list. Another work dating back to the Victorian Era is Charles Dicken’s “A Christmas Carol”. Both children and adults continue to enjoy this story and the lessons it teaches. Often no consensus is reached whether a given work is best categorized as adult or children’s literature, and many books are marketed for both adults and children.

Books chosen for children
The most restrictive definition of children’s literature are those books various authorities determine are “appropriate” for children, such as teachers, reviewers, scholars, parents, publishers, librarians, retailers, and the various book-award committees.

Parents wishing to protect their children from the unhappier aspects of life often find the traditional fairy tales, nursery rhymes and other voyages of discovery problematic, because often the first thing a story does is remove the adult influence, leaving the central character to learn to cope on his or her own: prominent examples of this include Snow White, Hansel and Gretel, Bambi and A Series of Unfortunate Events.

Many see such isolation of child characters from supporting adults as necessary preparation for the transition to adulthood. The school story became a common device for this, beginning with Tom Brown’s Schooldays (1857) by Thomas Hughes and F.W. Farrar‘s Eric, or, Little by Little, although the framework had been explored as early as 1749 by Sarah Fielding in The Governess, or The Little Female Academy. Life begins for Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn in the Mark Twain stories (1876 and 1885) once Aunt Polly’s ineffectual tutelage is shaken off. In the classic British novels Tom’s Midnight Garden (Philippa Pearce, 1958) and Jessamy (Barbara Sleigh, 1967), for example, the responsibility is enhanced by isolating the child not just spatially, but in time, through the use of time slip. Arthur Ransome used the device of children acting for themselves extensively in his Swallows and Amazons series (1930–48) and included poignant discussion of it (the “duffer” question in Swallows and Amazons and Swallowdale).

Books chosen by children

Huckleberry Finn

The broadest definition of children’s literature applies to books that are actually selected and read by children. Children choose many books, such as comics, which some would not consider to be literature at all in the traditional sense; they also choose literary classics and recognized great works by modern writers, and often enjoy stories which speak on multiple levels. In the opinion of novelist Orson Scott Card, “one can make a good case for the idea that children are often the guardians of the truly great literature of the world, for in their love of story and unconcern for stylistic fads and literary tricks, children unerringly gravitate toward truth and power.”^[3] Someone who enjoyed Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland as a child may come back to the text as an adult and see the darker themes that were lost on them as younger readers.

In addition, many classic books that were originally intended for adults are now commonly thought of as works for children. Mark Twain‘s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was originally intended for an adult audience.^[4] Today it is widely read as a part of children’s school curriculum in the United States.