Children's fantasy

Children's fantasy is children's literature with fantasy elements: fantasy intended for young readers.[1] It may also mean fantasy read by children, regardless of the intended audience.[2]

Illustration from first edition of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

The genre has roots in folk tales such as Aesop's Fables that were not originally intended for children: before the Victorian era, fairytales were perceived as immoral and ill-suited for children's minds.[3][4] A market for children's fantasy was established in Britain in the 19th century,[5] leading to works such as Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland and Edith Nesbit's Five Children series;[6] the genre also developed in America, exemplified by L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.[7] Of the authors of this period, Nesbit is commonly cited as the creator of modern children's fantasy.[8]

The golden age of children's fantasy, in scholars' view, occurred in the mid-20th century when the genre was influenced by J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and C. S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia.[9][10] In the vein of Narnia, the post-war period saw rising stakes and manifestations of evil in the works of Susan Cooper and Alan Garner.[11] Tolkien's Middle-earth led to mythopoeic fantasy in the 1970s, from authors such as Ursula K. Le Guin and Robin McKinley.[12] Another influential writer of this period was Diana Wynne Jones, who wrote both medievalist and realist fantasies.[13]

In the late 1990s, J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter led to a commercial boom in the genre, reviving older authors' careers and spawning many imitators.[14][15] A concurrent success is Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials, a darker, realistic fantasy that led to a corresponding trend in a new young adult market.[16][17]