ABSTRACT
The history of children's literature in Latin America could never be isolated from the five-century history of the continent, a New World, a meeting-place of two cultures. In 1492, when Christopher Columbus's three caravels sighted land, the area was populated by peoples having cultural and scientific wealth as rich as that possessed by any country of the Old World. Unfortunately, due to the economic requirements of the budding capitalist society, then just emerging from feudalism, America was viewed as a huge store of raw materials, riches that the European kingdoms wanted to finance their wars.
