SOURCE: "Children in Children's Literature: James Janeway to Lewis Carroll," in The Child Figure in English Literature, The University of Georgia Press, 1978, pp. 135-59.

In the following excerpt, Pattison argues that the notion of original sin—that each individual is born sinful—was fundamental to didactic children's literature; he further asserts that this belief carried into the non-didactic literature of the the latter half of the century.

No book could better illustrate the connection between the child figure in children's literature and the idea of a fallen universe than James Janeway's A Token for Children: Being an exact account of the conversion, holy and exemplary lives and joyful deaths of several young children [1972]. Janeway's book, which is perhaps the first book both for and about children (it was published sometime shortly after the Restoration), indicates in text as well as title that the highest reward to which youthful...