ABSTRACT
Nicholas Tucker considers children and their literature from a psychologist’s viewpoint. John Rowe Townsend’s is another ‘voice’ relating the story of children’s literature and putting it in an historical and social context. David Lewis applies insights from postmodernism and structuralism to the examination of children’s books. Some of those who have studied and written about children’s literature have been able to make a link between the quality of books and the needs and development of young readers. Who reviews children’s fiction? Reviewers include critics, librarians, teachers, writers and illustrators of children’s books, and sometimes children themselves. Good reviewing requires considerable knowledge of children’s books, acute judgement and the ability to write truthfully in an accessible way. While books for adults are written by adults for adults, books for children are written by adults for children. Once children understand what reading can offer them, how it can connect with their feelings and experiences, they are gripped.
