Publishing House

Children's Book Publishers And Publishing A Children's Book

There is a hot debate regarding what constitutes children's literature. In general, the term comprises of those books which are selected and read by children themselves, as well as those considered as 'appropriate for children' by authorities such as publishing houses, reviewers, teachers, scholars, bookstores, parents, librarians, and award committees.

Some of these books are targeted toward the children audience themselves. However, some of these books were written for the adult audience but eventually came to be regarded a part of children's literature. For instance, Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper as will as the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The reverse phenomenon occurs sometimes as well. Some fiction novels written or children were given recognition as adult books. For instance, Philip Pullman's The Amber Spyglass and Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. Both these books won Whitbread Awards, which are generally given to novels meant for adults.

There are a number of issues involved with children's literature. Much of what is written for children is enjoyed by children as well as adults. The best example would be Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, which was read by people as children. However when they reread the book when they were adults, they noticed many critical aspects which they failed to notice as children. The adults who see the darker side of these novels may deem it unsuitable as reading materials for children. They fail to understand that such intricate details may not be understood by children.

One good example could be Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, throughout which the racist term "nigger" has been used deliberately. The racist connotations of the word deem it unsuitable to be used anywhere, particularly in children's literature. However, some people disregard this criticism.

Publishing houses associated with children's literature are many. There are many publishing houses which specialize solely in children's literature, some of them are Abdo publishing company, Adarna house, Big Guy Books, Books for learning, Candlewick press, Wizard Books, Ladybird books, Orchard Books and Scholastic. Many of us have memories of reading books which had a small ladybird at the left hand corner of the cover of the book. Yes we are talking of books which were published by Ladybird Publishing House.

Children's literature is a major source of income for publishing houses, as the demand for them is never going to diminish. Neither are the ideas for children's stories going to be restricted to a few adult themes. How can we ever forget Enid Blyton while talking of children's literature? Full of gnomes, elves, fairies and princesses, books written by Enid Blyton proved to an extremely interesting and fascinating read for children. Publishing houses linked with such famous books and authors gained a lot both in terms of popularity as well as in terms of net profit.