Browsing Topic Best Children's Literature Quotes

It is our choices… that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.

Most of the great works of juvenile literature are subversive in one way or another: they express ideas and emotions not generally approved of or even recognized at the time; they make fun of honored figures and piously held beliefs; and they view social pretenses with clear-eyed directness, remarking – as in Andersen’s famous tale – that the emperor has no clothes.

And now here is my secret, a very simple secret; it is only with the heart that one can see rightly, what is essential is invisible to the eye.

The great subversive works of children’s literature suggest that there are other views of human life besides those of the shopping mall and the corporation. They mock current assumptions and express the imaginative, unconventional, noncommercial view of the world in its simplest and purest form. They appeal to the imaginative, questioning, rebellious child within all of us, renew our instinctive energy, and act as a force for change. This is why such literature is worthy of our attention and will endure long after more conventional tales have been forgotten.

There are people whom even children’s literature would corrupt. They read with particular enjoyment the piquant passages in the Psalter and in the Wisdom of Solomon.

A childhood without books – that would be no childhood. That would be like being shut out from the enchanted place where you can go and find the rarest kind of joy.

It is, of course, traditional in children’s literature to get rid of the parents.

I think any good literature, whether it’s for children or for adults, will appeal to everybody. As far as children’s literature goes, adults should be able to read it and enjoy it as much as a child would.

Of course all children’s literature is not fantastic, so all fantastic books need not be children’s books. It is still possible, even in an age so ferociously anti-romantic as our own, to write fantastic stories for adults: though you will usually need to have made a name in some more fashionable kind of literature before anyone will publish them.

It is only with the heart that one can see rightly.

A child… who has learned from fairy stories to believe that what at first seemed a repulsive, threatening figure can magically change into a most helpful friend is ready to believe that a strange child whom he meets and fears may also be changed from a menace into a desirable companion.

Why did you do all this for me?’ he asked. ‘I don’t deserve it. I’ve never done anything for you.’ ‘You have been my friend,’ replied Charlotte. ‘That in itself is a tremendous thing.

I wish that the adults who are ‘in power’ cared more about what their children read. Books are incredibly powerful when we are young – the books I read as a child have stayed with me my entire life – and yet, the people who write about books, for the most part, completely ignore children’s literature.

One of the strange things about living in the world is that it is only now and then one is quite sure one is going to live forever and ever and ever.

‘Oh, yes,’ nodded Pollyanna emphatically. ‘He said he felt better right away, that first day he thought to count ’em. He said if God took the trouble to tell us eight hundred times to be glad and rejoice, He must want us to do it – some.

A Wasn’t just isn’t. He just isn’t present. But you… You ARE YOU! And, now isn’t that pleasant!

I have a passion for children’s literature. Young adult literature. I love it. I’ve always loved it.

Don’t just teach your children to read… Teach them to question what they read. Teach them to question everything.

They [Narnia] are, perhaps, the greatest classics of children’s literature of the twentieth century.

People didn’t make life, so they can’t destroy it. Even if we were to wipe out every bit of life in the world, we can’t touch the place life comes from. Whatever made the plants and animals and people spring up in the first place will always be there, and life will spring up again.

What I use from my own life is not the facts, it’s the emotion. It’s how I felt about something. It has nothing to do with facts at all. You can get those anywhere. It’s the feelings of childhood that you need to know.

A children’s writer should, ideally, be a dedicated semi-lunatic, a kind of poet with a marvelous idea, who, preferably, when not committing the marvellous idea to paper, does something else of a quite different kind, so as to acquire new and rich experience.

In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun. You find the fun and – SNAP – the job’s a game!

Mr. McGregor’s a nasty piece of work, isn’t he? Quite the Darth Vader of children’s literature.

I also really liked playing Mr. Tumnus in ‘Narnia’. I got to play my favorite character in children’s literature, which I loved. You don’t get the chance to do that in other jobs.

Some days are like that. Even in Australia.

Fairies have to be one thing or the other, because being so small they unfortunately have room for one feeling only at a time.

She asked where he lived. Second to the right,’ said Peter, ‘and then straight on till morning.

Good children’s literature appeals not only to the child in the adult, but to the adult in the child.

…those of us who write for children are called, not to do something to a child, but be someone for a child.

Only as we give the children the truth about life can we expect any improvement in it.

I do not believe in guilt, moderation or dull pencils.

There is no such thing as children’s literature.

The only books that work are those which fly through the air – the ones you let happen, not make happen.

There is a tiger in my room,’ said Frances. ‘Did he bite you?’ said Father. ‘No,’ said Frances. ‘Did he scratch you?’ said Mother. ‘No,’ said Frances. ‘Then he is a friendly tiger,’ said Father. ‘He will not hurt you. Go back to sleep.