A guide to children's literature including resources at the State Library and elsewhere
Instructional books for children have the longest history of all categories of children's books. The electronic database Nineteenth Century Collections Online includes twelve children's literature and childhood collections. Click the link to this database here, go to View Online, enter your keywords. At any time you can select the Children's Literature and Childhood archive, click the button Explore Collections and you can scroll through the twelve collections including education and handicapped children, the history of education, and juvenile crime and detention.
This guide also helps you find instructional books for children held at the Library from the 1500s onwards. On the right hand side of this page click the specific century to find educational books for children from that period.
To find books about literary and educational theory, didacticism or pedagogy search the Library catalogue and enter keywords like didacticism OR pedagogy.
In the left hand column of the Results list you can refine your search by subject, creation date or collection or just limit to Online resources at the top of the list.
Try this article in the La Trobe Journal about early instructional books for young children, The ABC of horn books by Juliet O'Conor.
To find articles about educational children's books, teaching and literary theory you can use our databases in the Library or at home if you are a Victorian registered user.
Some electronic databases include:
Search for literature by and about Australian writers and writing, including biographies, bibliographies, critical articles and creative writing.
Search full-text scholarly journals on all subjects published from 1700 up until 1–5 years ago. Articles published before 1923 in United States journals, or before 1870 elsewhere, are freely accessible.
Browse an extensive selection of dictionaries and other reference works on language, art, society, science, medicine, literature, history, Western civilisation and more.
Spotlight Discover more about this resource in our Online Collection Spotlight: Oxford Reference Online blog post.
Access an index of British and European humanities and social science journals from the 18th century to 2005.
Access a huge range of international and Australian content on business, education, humanities, medicine, social sciences, science and technology topics.
