Children's Literature and Fables: Authors and Collections
Books and authors notes on children's literature for exams: Panchatantra, Hitopadesha, Jataka tales, Aesop, Grimm, Andersen, Kipling, Ruskin Bond and Amar Chitra Katha.
By GK24 Editorial Team· Published · 4 min read
Children's literature is one of the easiest scoring areas of the books and authors section, because the questions ask only for a pairing: a book with its author, an author with the country, a fable collection with the language it was first written in. The chapter runs from the Sanskrit fable books of ancient India to the classics of Europe and the children's writers of modern India. Learn the pairs as a table and the marks follow.
The fable collections of India
India gave the world its oldest surviving collections of animal fables, in which beasts speak and each tale carries a lesson in practical wisdom.
| Work | Author | Language | Structure |
|---|---|---|---|
| Panchatantra | Vishnu Sharma | Sanskrit | Five books, from the separation of friends to rash deeds |
| Hitopadesha | Narayana Pandita | Sanskrit | Four books: gaining friends, losing friends, war and peace |
| Jataka tales | Anonymous, part of the Buddhist canon | Pali | Over five hundred stories of the Buddha's earlier births |
| Kathasaritsagara | Somadeva | Sanskrit | A vast ocean of stories compiled in Kashmir |
| Vetala Panchavimshati, the Baital Pachisi | Traditional, retold by Somadeva and others | Sanskrit | Twenty five riddle tales told by a spirit |
| Simhasana Dvatrimshika, the Singhasan Battisi | Traditional | Sanskrit | Thirty two tales of King Vikramaditya |
The Panchatantra is said to have been composed by Vishnu Sharma to teach statecraft to the dull sons of a king. Its journey out of India is itself an exam fact: it was translated into Middle Persian, then into Arabic as Kalila wa Dimna, and from Arabic into Hebrew, Latin and the languages of Europe, which makes it one of the most widely translated books of the world after religious scripture. The Hitopadesha was composed later, in four books, and its stories overlap with the Panchatantra. The Jataka tales belong to Buddhism and show the Bodhisattva in earlier lives as a deer, a monkey, an elephant or a king, teaching generosity and truthfulness.
The fabulists of the world
- Aesop of ancient Greece is the name attached to the western fables: the tortoise and the hare, the fox and the grapes, the boy who cried wolf, and the lion and the mouse.
- Jean de La Fontaine of France retold many of these fables in verse in the seventeenth century, drawing openly on Aesop and on the Indian collections.
- Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm of Germany collected the folk tales published as Grimm's Fairy Tales, among them Cinderella, Snow White, Rapunzel and Hansel and Gretel.
- Hans Christian Andersen of Denmark wrote his own tales rather than collecting them: The Ugly Duckling, The Little Mermaid, The Emperor's New Clothes and The Little Match Girl. International Children's Book Day is observed on 2 April, his birthday.
Classics of children's writing in English
| Book | Author | Country |
|---|---|---|
| Alice's Adventures in Wonderland | Lewis Carroll, the pen name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson | England |
| The Jungle Book | Rudyard Kipling | England, born in Bombay |
| Treasure Island | Robert Louis Stevenson | Scotland |
| The Adventures of Tom Sawyer | Mark Twain, the pen name of Samuel Clemens | United States |
| The Adventures of Pinocchio | Carlo Collodi | Italy |
| Peter Pan | J. M. Barrie | Scotland |
| Winnie-the-Pooh | A. A. Milne | England |
| The Little Prince | Antoine de Saint-Exupery | France |
| Charlotte's Web | E. B. White | United States |
| The Chronicles of Narnia | C. S. Lewis | Ireland and England |
| Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda | Roald Dahl | Wales |
| The Harry Potter series | J. K. Rowling | England |
Rudyard Kipling is the one to watch, because he joins two syllabus areas: he wrote The Jungle Book with Mowgli, Baloo, Bagheera and Shere Khan, set in the forests of central India, and he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1907, the first writer in English to receive it.
Children's writing in India
Ruskin Bond, who lives in Mussoorie, is the best known Indian writer for children in English. He wrote The Room on the Roof as a teenager, created the character Rusty, and wrote The Blue Umbrella, The Night Train at Deoli and many ghost and hill stories. He received the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1992 for Our Trees Still Grow in Dehra, the Padma Shri in 1999 and the Padma Bhushan in 2014. R. K. Narayan created the small town of Malgudi, and his Swami and Friends and Malgudi Days are read by children and adults alike. Sudha Murty has written How I Taught My Grandmother to Read, The Magic Drum and Grandma's Bag of Stories. In Bengali, Upendrakishore Ray Chowdhury wrote Tuntunir Boi and his son Sukumar Ray wrote the nonsense verse of Abol Tabol and the story HaJaBaRaLa; Abanindranath Tagore wrote Kheerer Putul and Buro Angla. Premchand wrote animal stories in Hindi, and Rabindranath Tagore wrote Sahaj Path for beginning readers.
Institutions, awards and days
- Children's Book Trust was founded in 1957 by the cartoonist K. Shankar Pillai, known simply as Shankar, who also began the Shankar's International Children's Competition.
- Amar Chitra Katha was started in 1967 by Anant Pai, affectionately called Uncle Pai, to tell Indian history and mythology in comics; he also launched the children's magazine Tinkle in 1980.
- The Hans Christian Andersen Award, given by the International Board on Books for Young People, is the highest international honour in children's literature and is often called the little Nobel.
- National Children's Day in India falls on 14 November, the birthday of Jawaharlal Nehru; International Children's Book Day is 2 April and World Book and Copyright Day is 23 April.
Exam Point of View
Almost every question here is a pairing, so prepare the pairs rather than the plots. Expect a work matched with its author: Panchatantra with Vishnu Sharma, Hitopadesha with Narayana Pandita, Kathasaritsagara with Somadeva, The Jungle Book with Kipling, Alice with Lewis Carroll. Expect a pen name matched with a real name: Lewis Carroll and Dodgson, Mark Twain and Clemens. Expect a story matched with its collection, which separates a Panchatantra tale such as The Blue Jackal from a Jataka tale such as The Talkative Tortoise and an Aesop fable such as The Tortoise and the Hare. Days and institutions complete the set: 2 April, 14 November, Amar Chitra Katha in 1967 and the Children's Book Trust in 1957. The commonest traps are swapping Vishnu Sharma with Narayana Pandita and crediting Amar Chitra Katha to Shankar instead of Anant Pai.
Important Facts
| Panchatantra | Vishnu Sharma, Sanskrit, five books |
|---|---|
| Hitopadesha | Narayana Pandita, Sanskrit, four books |
| Jataka tales | Pali; earlier births of the Buddha; over five hundred stories |
| Kathasaritsagara | Somadeva, compiled in Kashmir |
| Arabic version of the Panchatantra | Kalila wa Dimna |
| Greek fabulist | Aesop |
| French fabulist in verse | Jean de La Fontaine |
| Collectors of German folk tales | Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm |
| International Children's Book Day | 2 April, the birthday of Hans Christian Andersen |
| National Children's Day in India | 14 November, the birthday of Jawaharlal Nehru |
| The Jungle Book | Rudyard Kipling; Nobel Prize in Literature, 1907 |
| Ruskin Bond | Sahitya Akademi Award 1992, Padma Shri 1999, Padma Bhushan 2014 |
| Amar Chitra Katha and Tinkle | Anant Pai, 1967 and 1980 |
| Children's Book Trust | Founded by K. Shankar Pillai in 1957 |
| Highest honour in children's literature | Hans Christian Andersen Award, given by IBBY |
Practice MCQs on this topic
Who is traditionally regarded as the author of the Panchatantra?
- A.Narayana Pandita
- B.Vishnu Sharma
- C.Somadeva
- D.Kalidasa
Show answer
The Panchatantra, a collection of animal fables in Sanskrit arranged in five books, is traditionally said to have been composed by Vishnu Sharma to teach practical statecraft to the dull witted sons of a king.
Read the full explanation →The Jataka tales are stories of
- A.the earlier births of the Buddha
- B.the exploits of King Vikramaditya
- C.the adventures of the Pandavas
- D.the childhood of Mahavira
Show answer
The Jataka tales form part of the Buddhist canon in Pali and number over five hundred.
Read the full explanation →The Panchatantra reached Europe mainly through an Arabic version titled
- A.Kalila wa Dimna
- B.Alf Layla wa Layla
- C.Kitab al-Hind
- D.Shahnama
Show answer
The Panchatantra was first rendered into Middle Persian, and from that version it was turned into Arabic as Kalila wa Dimna, the two names being those of the jackals of the first book.
Read the full explanation →International Children's Book Day is observed on 2 April to mark the birthday of
- A.the Brothers Grimm
- B.Hans Christian Andersen
- C.Lewis Carroll
- D.Rudyard Kipling
Show answer
The Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen was born on 2 April, and the International Board on Books for Young People chose that date for International Children's Book Day; the same body gives the Hans Christian Andersen Award, often called the little Nobel of children's literature.
Read the full explanation →Mowgli, Baloo and Shere Khan are characters created by
- A.Rudyard Kipling
- B.Robert Louis Stevenson
- C.Roald Dahl
- D.Kenneth Grahame
Show answer
Mowgli the boy raised by wolves, Baloo the bear, Bagheera the panther, Kaa the python and Shere Khan the tiger are the characters of The Jungle Book, written by Rudyard Kipling and set in the forests of central India.
Read the full explanation →Which Indian writer for children received the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1992 for Our Trees Still Grow in Dehra?
- A.R. K. Narayan
- B.Ruskin Bond
- C.Sudha Murty
- D.Anant Pai
Show answer
Ruskin Bond, who has lived in Mussoorie for most of his life, won the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1992 for the collection Our Trees Still Grow in Dehra.
Read the full explanation →Amar Chitra Katha, the comic series on Indian history and mythology, was started by
- A.Anant Pai
- B.K. Shankar Pillai
- C.Pran Kumar Sharma
- D.Narayan Debnath
Show answer
Anant Pai, known to generations of readers as Uncle Pai, began Amar Chitra Katha in 1967 after noticing that Indian children knew European fairy tales better than the stories of their own country, and in 1980 he launched the children's magazine Tinkle.
Read the full explanation →Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was written under the pen name Lewis Carroll by
- A.Samuel Langhorne Clemens
- B.Charles Lutwidge Dodgson
- C.Eric Arthur Blair
- D.Mary Ann Evans
Show answer
Dodgson was a mathematician at Oxford who wrote Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass under the pen name Lewis Carroll, and the nonsense poem Jabberwocky belongs to the same world.
Read the full explanation →Which of the following fables is attributed to Aesop?
- A.The Tortoise and the Hare
- B.The Blue Jackal
- C.The Monkey and the Crocodile
- D.The Talkative Tortoise
Show answer
The race in which the slow tortoise beats the overconfident hare is one of the best known fables attributed to Aesop of ancient Greece, along with the fox and the grapes, the boy who cried wolf and the lion and the mouse.
Read the full explanation →The Children's Book Trust was founded in 1957 by
- A.Anant Pai
- B.K. Shankar Pillai
- C.Sudha Murty
- D.Ruskin Bond
Show answer
The cartoonist Shankar, famous for his political cartoons and for Shankar's Weekly, founded the Children's Book Trust in New Delhi in 1957 to publish good and affordable books for Indian children, and also started the Shankar's International Children's Competition for painting and writing as well as the doll museum in…
Read the full explanation →Abol Tabol, the famous collection of nonsense verse for children in Bengali, was written by
- A.Upendrakishore Ray Chowdhury
- B.Sukumar Ray
- C.Abanindranath Tagore
- D.Satyajit Ray
Show answer
Sukumar Ray wrote Abol Tabol, a collection of nonsense rhymes that is a landmark of Bengali children's writing, along with the story HaJaBaRaLa and the play Chalachittachanchari.
Read the full explanation →Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between the Panchatantra and the Hitopadesha?
Both are Sanskrit collections of animal fables that teach worldly wisdom, and they share many stories. The Panchatantra is older, is attributed to Vishnu Sharma and is arranged in five books. The Hitopadesha is later, is attributed to Narayana Pandita and is arranged in four books on gaining friends, losing friends, war and peace.
Which Indian story collection travelled farthest outside India?
The Panchatantra. It was translated into Middle Persian, then into Arabic as Kalila wa Dimna, and from Arabic into Hebrew, Latin, Spanish, German and English, so its stories entered European folklore. It is counted among the most translated books in the world after religious scripture.
Who are the best known Indian writers for children?
In English, Ruskin Bond, R. K. Narayan and Sudha Murty. In Bengali, Upendrakishore Ray Chowdhury, Sukumar Ray, Abanindranath Tagore and Satyajit Ray. In Hindi, Premchand's animal stories and the writing published by the Children's Book Trust and the National Book Trust are the standard reading.
What is the Hans Christian Andersen Award?
It is the highest international honour in children's literature, given by the International Board on Books for Young People to a living author and a living illustrator for a body of work rather than for a single book. It is often described as the little Nobel of children's writing.
Which day is National Children's Day in India and why?
14 November, the birthday of Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first Prime Minister, who was fond of children and was called Chacha Nehru. It should not be confused with Universal Children's Day on 20 November or with International Children's Book Day on 2 April.
Which fable collections are the stories of Vikramaditya and the Vetala found in?
The thirty two tales of King Vikramaditya make up the Simhasana Dvatrimshika, known in Hindi as the Singhasan Battisi. The twenty five riddle tales told by a spirit to the same king make up the Vetala Panchavimshati, known as the Baital Pachisi, and several of them appear within Somadeva's Kathasaritsagara.
Sources
- Catalogue of Sanskrit narrative literature and award citations — Sahitya Akademi
- Publications and history of the Trust — Children's Book Trust, New Delhi
- Hans Christian Andersen Award and International Children's Book Day — International Board on Books for Young People
- Nobel Prize in Literature, 1907 — The Nobel Foundation
