ABSTRACT
In the history of modern children’s literature from the late 18th century onwards one of the norms described in Chapter 16 has played a special role: the norm that requires children’s reading material to be fashioned to suit its intended receivers. In some of the children’s literary concepts developed in Chapter 17 this fashioning of the message to suit its receivers was even the primary norm. In concepts of this kind the child suitability of children’s literature is elevated to become the central requirement of children’s literature. Thus Göte Klingberg, for example, thinks that “all literature produced for children and young people must, in one way or another, be adapted to its consumers since we would not otherwise be dealing with literature produced specifi cally for young children” (Klingberg 1973, 92). Even if this needs some qualifi cation, the fact remains that suiting the message to the receiver remains one of the most prominent topics of interest in the fi eld of past and present children’s literary theory.
