French children's literature for ‘the children of the videosphere'

Abstract

What characterises children's publishing in France at this time of a uniform worldwide culture imposed in a positive fashion by the 1989 Declaration of Children's Rights and, more dubiously, by globalization and electronic reproduction? Can we speak of the influence on it of a new multinational republic of children through the increasing number of translations from other countries or does French children's literature rest only on a few successful classics such as Jean de Brunhoff's Babar or Charles Perrault's tales, among which Little Red Riding Hood is a world's bestseller? The purpose of this paper is to point out the contemporary literary trends evincing a new awareness of our writers, artist creators and publishing houses expressing the sensibility of our reading public.