ABSTRACT
A glimpse into the literature for children available in the Malaysian market reveals that there is no dearth in the supply of material for improvement of literacy for children, particularly children's books. However, these books and sundry material collectively fall short of showing a definite "Malaysian-ness" in content. A brief survey of the literature demonstrates that children's books in the Malay language have had a much earlier beginning compared to those in English. Similar to the tradition in the west, these early books were written to develop reading and writing skills. Based on requests for teaching material made to the Colonial Office in London by British officers serving in the Federation of Malaya in the late 1940s, it can be deduced that Malaysian children's literature in English had its beginnings with the setting up of the British colonial government in Malaya in the first half of the twentieth century.
