It seems like children's books in the past were a lot heftier

>>2693037
A shift in the teaching of reading, from the idea that you learn by reading something slightly too difficult for you to understand at first, to 'See Dick run. Run, Dick, run.' Learning is more effective when the material is actually interesting.

File: god damn it martha.jpg (101KB, 558x600px) Image search: [Google]

101KB, 558x600px

>>2693054
Reading in most English speaking countries is still taught relatively the same way using synthetic phonics, which start by teaching you letters, then the sounds letters make, then the sounds combined letters make in syllable sequences, then how to combine those sequences to make words. Children then and now were taught using simple sentences, which got gradually more and more complicated as they mastered reading.

For a good example of this, look at this early reader primer from 1897: http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/14640/pg14640-images.html

It goes from teaching children to read

>The dog. The dog ran.

to more complex, several sentence story about Chippy, the best chicken. There were 4 more readers in the series which, similar to "Step into reading" style books, get more complex the older the children were.

IMO the reason why people have this perception of children's books being so difficult in the past compared to now is because the children's books that have stayed in popular memory are the books aimed at older child readers. Simpler books from the 19th century were so basic and very similar to very basic children's books in the early modern era. But without the full-page illustrations that ended up making them iconic/memorable in the nostalgia market.

>>2693037
There's a little truth in it, however it's something that's been subject as much to fashion and trends as it has to rising or declining standards.
Walter Scott was originally seen as an adult novelist, then as Romanticism declined he was seen as more suitable for children. Today he's seen as an adult author again.

had a small stories book for children years ago and it was full of violent stuff.

Like one story was about a cat that sneaked into the kitchen and smelled some meat on a knife, and she started to lick the knife thinking it was a piece of meat until her tongue started to bleed which made her lick the knife even more aggressively thinking it's coming from the meat.
then house's lady came into the kitchen and was like 'Haha silly cat' or something.

the story is stuck with me but i have no idea what the moral is.

>>2693037

It's true. I guess it's a "let children be children" thing. Also, one kind of book doesn't suit all age groups and the old style books still fit for older children.

I find it especially funny to realize how dark old fairy tales really are.

>Little Red Riding Hood gets devoured by a wolf and then the wolf's stomach gets cut open by a hunter
>Hansel and Gretel enter the house of a witch made out of candy, get fattened by the witch only to be put into an oven to serve as a meal for the witch

Modern children stories are nothing compared to this.

File: WEBZONE KIDS.gif (41KB, 352x150px) Image search: [Google]

41KB, 352x150px

>>2693037

TWENTYFIRST CENTURY VERSION OF THAT PAINTING ATTACHED TO THIS POST.

File: 415sPaS0FoL._SX358_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg (31KB, 360x499px) Image search: [Google]

31KB, 360x499px

>>2693677
>Modern children stories are nothing compared to this.

They're dark from time to time!

Some old fairy tales are dark, others aren't. Some of them over the years have been conflated--such as those lists that claim the first version of Sleeping Beauty had rape, but the fairy tale they're talking about isn't the first Sleeping Beauty, it's just a fairy tale in the same tale-type (Aarne-Thompson-Uther type 709).

Surprisingly enough, most of the Grimm fairy tales are lighter than earlier versions, namely because the initial Grimm publication was a collection of folktales intended for adult readers and when publishers realized children were the target market, they were edited to be more sanitized. For instance, the Grimm brothers revised Snow White so that evil mothers became evil stepmothers in both Snow White and Hansel and Gretel. They also added a happy ending for Little Red Riding Hood--the Perrault version simply ends with her being eaten, no hunter to save the day.

And then over the years, because they became associated with childhood and the concept of protecting children's innocence really took off in the mid-19th century onward, they have become even more sanitized. Although we're on another swing thanks for the wide variety of children's literature nowadays--now what gets published is a mixture of both. I think it is becoming more common to see the older tales represented, despite the prevalence of Disney... I was very surprised to see that the London Children's Ballet kept the stepmother dancing to her death in their productions of Snow White!

I don't know of any old Hansel and Gretel version where they are killed and eaten by the witch? Is it a non-German variant? In the earliest Grimm version, both of the parents agree to abandon the children, whereas in later revised editions (after they became popular with children) they made her a stepmother and had the father oppose the plan. But even in the earliest Grimm version, the children survive.