The first widely-read American author of secular children’s
literature, apart from text writers, was Samuel Goodrich. Beginning in 1827, Goodrich
wrote over 100 books under the pen name of "Peter Parley" and edited Parley’s
Magazine. The books and magazine articles were didactic but informal; they were
full of zest and readable, using simple and direct language and a conversational approach.
In Peter Parley’s Book of the United States, published in 1837,
Goodrich wrote that he had
| sought to make the book attractive, by the introduction of illustrative sketches
and anecdotes, and by the use of a free, and somewhat colloquial, style. |
The Peter Parley books were very attuned to the educational
theories of John Locke, emphasizing rational thought, with instructive stories about
science and the natural world. Although Goodrich would often include articles on
temperance and small moral stories in Parley’s Magazine, the open moral
purpose that was so dominant in Sunday School literature played a smaller and smaller
role.
This was a trend found in all children’s magazines of the 19th century.
Hundreds of these magazines were founded, few lasted more than a few years. There was an
occasional success story, however : the longest-lived juvenile periodical, The
Youth’s Companion, ran from 1827 until 1929. Many of these magazines
served as the launching ground for the writings of literary ladies such as Louisa May
Alcott.
The influence of "Peter Parley" in nonfiction was increased a hundred fold by
the fictional writings of the great educator Jacob Abbott. Abbott wrote his first
children’s book in 1834, beginning a long-running fictional series for American
children centered around "Rollo," a little boy who learns and grows and
encounters challenges.
|
Joseph Abbott’s Rollo Learning To
Talk. (Weeks, Jordan and Company, 1839.) |
The earliest book, Rollo Learning to Talk, uses
very simple language and many woodcut illustrations. In his "Authors Note,"
Abbott writes
| These little talks about pictures are mainly intended to be read by a mother, or by
one of the older children, to a little one who is learning to talk. Their design is to
interest and amuse the child, and at the same time to teach it the use of language and the
meaning of words. |
As Rollo grows, the complexity of the vocabulary and sentence
structure - as well as Rollo’s adventures - grows. In Rollo Learning to Read
(1839), Abbott notes
| The author’s design here has been, first to interest the little reader,
hoping, by this interest, to allure him on to the encounter of the difficulties in the
language, and to the conquest of them. |
Rollo always learns a moral principal; not through lecturing,
however, but through realizing the consequences of his actions. His lessons are always
mild.
In a similar vein, Abbott also wrote a series of books about Rollo’s "Cousin
Lucy." Using naturalistic nonrepetitive dialogue, he tells charming stories of a
little girl interacting with her family and her schoolteacher to learn simple lessons
about right conduct (to be orderly with her possessions, to tell the truth), enlarging her
vocabulary and learning new skills. Abbott’s characters always seem like real
children. (Click HERE for an interesting
sidebar on the later evolution of "Series" books for children.) |
