fiction. Realism took a gloomy turn by frequently showing the maltreatment of children from lower classes. The most popular boys' material was Sherlock Holmes, and similar stories from detective

ibraries to buy science and math books and the non-fiction book market "seemed to materialize overnight".[1]:482
Russia and USSR[edit]
In Russia, Russian folk tales were introduced to children by Aleksandr Afanasyev in his children's edition of his eight-volume Russian Folk Tales in 1871. By the 1860s, literary realism and non-fiction dominated children's literature. More schools were started, using books by writers like Konstantin Ushinsky and Leo Tolstoy, whose Russian Reader included an assortment of stories, fairy tales, and fables. Books written specifically for girls developed in the 1870s and 1880s. Publisher and journalist Evgenia Tur wrote about the daughters of well-to-do landowners, while Aleksandra Annenskaya's stories told of middle-class girls working to support themselves. Vera Zhelikhovsky, Elizaveta Kondrashova, and Nadezhda Lukhmanova also wrote for girls during this period.[1]:767
Children's non-fiction gained great importance in Russia at the beginning of the century. A ten-volume children's encyclopedia was published between 1913 and 1914. Vasily Avenarius wrote fictionalized biographies of important people like Nikolai Gogol and Alexander Pushkin around the same time, and scientists wrote for books and magazines for children. Children's magazines flourished, and by the end of the century there were 61. Lidia Charskaya and Klavdiya Lukashevich continued the popularity of girls' fiction. Realism took a gloomy turn by frequently showing the maltreatment of children from lower classes. The most popular boys' material was Sherlock Holmes, and similar stories from detective magazines.[1]:768
The state took control of children's literature during the October Revolution. Maksim Gorky edited the first children's, Northern Lights, under Soviet rule. People often label the 1920s as the Golden Age of Children's Literature in Russia.[1]:769 Samuil Marshak led that literary decade as the "founder of (Soviet) children's literature".[37]:193 As head of the children's section of the State Publishing House and editor of several children's magazines, Marshak exercised enormous influence by[37]:192–193 recruiting Boris Pasternak and Osip Mandelstam to write for children.
In 1932, professional writers in the Soviet Union formed the USSR Union of Writers, which served as the writer's organization of the Communist Party. With a children's branch, the official oversight of the professional organization brought children's writers under the control of the state and the police. Communist principles like collectivism and solidarity became important themes in children's literature. Authors wrote biographies about revolutionaries like Lenin and Pavlik Morozov. Alexander Belyayev, who wrote in the 1920s and 1930s, became Russia's first science fiction writer.[1]:770 According to Ben Hellman in the International Companion Encyclopedia of Children's Literature, "war was to occupy a prominent place in juvenile reading, partly compensating for the lack of adventure stories", during the Soviet Period.[1]:771 More political changes in Russia after World War II brought further change in children's literature. Today, the field is in a state of flux because some older authors are being rediscovered and others are being abandoned.[1]:772
India[edit]


A Tagore illustration of a Hindu myth
Christian missionaries first established the Calcutta School-Book Society in the 19th century, creating a separate genre for children's literature in that country. Magazines and books for children in native languages soon appeared.[1]:808 In the latter half of the century, Raja Shivprasad wrote several well-known books in Hindustani.[1]:810 A number of respected Bengali writers began producing Bengali literature for children including Ishwar Chandra Vidya