The project aims to provide a completely new historical account of children's and youth literature c. 1300-2010, focusing on describing the scope, transformations, function and significance of this literature over the centuries. An important starting point is to make children's literature visible as an essential source of knowledge for society's view of children, childhood, literature, aesthetics, art, ethics and learning in different times. Much new research has been required for this new standard work, and in several areas the contributing scholars revise the history of children's literature as we know it today.