I’ve always been a fantasy reader—it was a fantasy series that got me into reading when I was a child, and it is the fantasy genre which holds my attention now as an adult. Fantasy as a genre is typically seen as something for younger readers (of course, this isn’t actually the case—fantasy stretches across age categories), and since it left a strong impact on how I engage with books, I thought it would be fun to look into how fantasy has evolved within children’s literature over the years! For the sake of this blog, I will be combining the children’s and middle-grade categories together but draw the line at young adult since that could be its own evolutionary timeline (and YA is a new genre in itself, really).
While children’s literature has in essence existed for centuries, it wasn’t until the 1800s that a strong line was drawn between what was for children and what was for adults. Many of the stories published later in the 1800s that were fantasy were categorized as children’s literature because of their focus on the imaginary. Many of Andrew Lang’s colored fairy books—The Blue and Green Fairy Books to name a few—are fantastic examples. A lot of the literature for children at this time were the classic fairy tales we know today, like Sleeping Beauty, Hansel and Gretel, and Little Red Riding Hood, put into short story collections. Others, such as Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi, Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, and The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling were published as their own books. Most if not all of these titles are likely familiar to you. It goes to show how the fantasy books from just two centuries ago are timeless, with how often they’re still told and referenced today.
The 1900s strayed away from the classic fairy tales, though their influence still remained. The early 1900s were dominated by L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz series, releasing roughly 15 books between 1900 and 1930. Alongside Baum’s work, J.R.R. Tolkien published The Hobbit. Tolkien is well-known for his expansive world, from elves to dwarfs to, well… hobbits! And can’t forget the dragons. However, Tolkien got a lot of his ideas for The Hobbit from earlier fairy tales, such as The Story of Sigurd told in various folk tales, and also a story included in Andrew Lang’s The Red Fairy Book. In the latter half of the 1900s, fantasy stories in children’s literature began to stray away from series. There were still many being published, certainly—Madeline L’Engle’s Time Quintet beginning with A Wrinkle in Time, for instance, was published in the late 1900s. However, more and more stories we still know today from this era were standalones—Roald Dahl’s Matilda and The BFG, for instance. That is, until the 1990s, when J.K. Rowling began publishing her Harry Potter series. All of these books stray away from the standard fairy tale format, however many borrow lessons, themes, or outright caricatures from the stories that came the century before.
Once the 2000s hit, fantasy expanded from being stories for children to stories that could be enjoyed by all ages. Rowling’s Harry Potter, for example, ended up piquing the interest of older readers, and the characters aging through the series meant that they could age with the readers. It’s also an example of how a children’s fantasy series continued to grow over time; and it is not alone in this category. Mary Pope Osborne’s The Magic Treehouse series began in the 1990s as well and is still being published to this day. The turn of the century, however, began to remove fantasy from children’s literature. Osborne’s series, for example, is a fantasy series with the intention of educating young readers about history—emphasis on the educating aspect. The categories that books were marketed in began to change. Instead of being children’s literature, many fantasy books began being placed in the middle-grade genre, while children’s literature filled with realistic fiction and picture books.
The kind of fantasy that permeated young readers’ shelves in the 2000s continued to shift away from the classic fairy tales of the 1800s. Series like Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson books or Tui T. Sutherland’s Wings of Fire novels began to grow in popularity. The former focuses on ancient mythology, while the latter brings to life a world full of dragons completely different from our own. This trend of creating new worlds for younger audiences would continue, with books like B.R. Kang’s Caput Mundi or Erin Hunter’s Warriors series which are still ongoing today. Now what’s prioritized is having a fresh take on fantasy—what can an author do differently, how can they make their book or series stand out and not be just another fairy tale retelling?
It’s fascinating to me how a lot of the fantasy tropes and stories I know—and I assume many other people are familiar with—are a result of the stories told over 200 years ago. It’s incredible how strongly they resonated with readers, and it’s always a fun experience when an author undertakes those stories, themes, or tropes and puts their own unique spin on it. I was surprised that fantasy series, for a brief moment of time, began to fall out of fashion before getting picked up again—and then never seemed to slow down, considering even now there are dozens of fantasy series for younger readers which are over three or five books long. Now I must ask, which ones are you familiar with? Is there a particular era of fantasy you find yourself gravitating toward?
Grace McCool, Pine Reads Review Writer & Editor