Discours à l'enfance et littérature jeunesse québécoise

Abstract

According to Dominique Demers, the history of Quebec's children's literature can be seen as the passage from a discourse on childhood to a discourse to children. Within less than seventy years, novelists have changed their relationship with their young readers dramatically. They no longer engage in a nostalgic, didactic, or ideological discourse, but try to reach their audience by exploring children's fears, dreams, and desires, and by creating more realistic and less edifying heroes with whom readers can identify. Notwithstanding a strong European influence, the evolution of Quebec's children's literature shows an American perception and understanding of childhood.