ABSTRACT
As this body of literature is unfamiliar to most readers, it will be helpful to understand the circumstances under which the texts in this corpus have developed. To this end, I briefl y trace several key infl uences on the growth of English-language children’s literature in India and the diaspora by providing a synthesis of relevant existing scholarship (primarily literary history and critical views). This outline creates a foundation for my subsequent arguments, which are underpinned by the position I establish here: in India these novels evolved out of an ethos which has long viewed children’s stories as powerful vehicles for ideology, whereas in the diaspora they evolved within the context of another didactic body of stories that also provides a forum for ideologywestern multicultural children’s literature.
