Microsoft Word final-current Developments at the Intersection of British Children-online-version doc

Literature
. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008, p. 4. For an overview of a large spectrum of 
definitions of children’s literature see pp. 133-244. 
20
Susan Ang. The Widening World of Children’s Literature. Basingstoke; London: Macmillan, 2000, p. 5.

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within “a clear-cut moral code”, positive rather than negative outlooks on life are favoured, 
and both structure and language are adapted to oblige the child’s needs and abilities.
21
No matter how divergent the single opinions may be, the unanimous demand for a 
poetics of children’s literature – a very complex venture, when undertaken – unites 
researchers and critics alike. Unanimously, they have come to realise that there is a strong 
demand for a poetics of children’s literature,
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which takes up all these questions of definition, 
form, content, purpose and aesthetics. Even if this poetics cannot meet all the expectations, it 
can at least answer more questions and make the points at issue clearer and more 
straightforward.
In due course we will see whether these common assumptions and claims are justified 
or whether concessions to children’s literature have to be made. What can already be stated is 
that children’s literature has emancipated itself. In its development it undergoes permanent 
changes, thus making it harder to label it and to limit it. Does it have to be narrowed down at 
all? Or isn’t it far more in keeping with the times to accept shifting forms and borders and 
being open for new impressions and views?
As with the other genres, modern literature for children has been influenced by 
globalisation and its implications. This further widening of its horizon allows children’s 
books to traverse “all social and cultural boundaries.”
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In the course of the mutual 
penetration and fertilisation of the various literatures, children’s literature profits from the 
softening and blurring of formerly rigid borders. On the way, it filters, adapts and applies 
tools, forms and topics of the so-called national literatures. One sign for this is its creative 
discussion of literary devices formerly reserved for the grown-ups. This leads for example to a 
“growing number of texts that are ambiguous and open-ended, lacking closure.”
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Another indicator for the shifting values and the attempts at a rapprochement of 
children’s literature to that of adults or the other way round are the publishing and marketing 
strategies in this sector. Nowadays, a book read by children does not necessarily comply with 
the expectations raised by the quoted indicators for children’s literature. Likewise, a book 
whose cover explicitly addresses children, which is sold and marketed under this section in 
21
Saxby, Books, p. 20. Compare also Nodelman’s extensive list of markers of children’s literature in: Nodelman, 
The Hidden Adult, 
pp. 76-81.
22
Despite the fact that Shavit published a poetics of children’s literature in 1986, the current developments need 
to be taken into account and past findings adjusted to a larger, more international scope. Zohar Shavit. Poetics 
of Children’s Literature
. Athens, Georgia: The University of Georgia Press, 1986.
23
Saxby, Books, p. 10. 
24
Ibd., p. 11. 

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the shops, can show exactly the same features as one for adults and, consequently, is read by 
them. It all boils down to the respective definition of childhood and target group. An 
interesting phenomenon to be addressed later on is the ambiguity of this group of books, 
which, variable as they are, can easily serve both markets.
From this, it becomes clear that the term “children’s literature” and all its implications 
remain elusive at the present moment in time. Under the influence of the new media and 
currents like globalisation, topical developments in society necessitate a re-definition of terms 
in order to open new ways to the unconstrained unfurling of children’s literature. The most 
visible sign for the opening of the genre is the beginning dissolution of age labels on the 
shelves as well as in the minds.
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