ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the links between children’s literature and religion. The secularisation of Western society raises the question of whether juvenile fiction and religion still enjoy a priviliged relationship. Religion expresses the deep intimacy of man with the cosmos, with life, with humankind and with God. Religion lacking the theist dimension and existing outside an established Church can be taken to refer to the fundamental questions about existence, to the vague ultimateness, the fundamentals that give life its meaning. In a secularised society, parents and educators who take the religious education of their children seriously need to consciously coach them during the process of religious socialisation. A well-known model is the lives of saints; because of their links with traditional Catholic religious experience, they were mainly used in Catholic juvenile fiction. The broad spectrum of texts shows that faith and religion continue to attract a great deal of attention in juvenile fiction.
