TALES or Foolishness? Catalan books for children in the first third of the 20th century

The first third of the 20th century was especially meaningful for the production of children's literature. Using the perhaps politically incorrect term Foolishness, inspired by how the writer Carles Riba criticized children's literature, in this paper we propose what books for children during the first third of the 20th century meant in Catalonia, and, specifically, we investigate how children's literature was understood then. With this purpose, we have chosen 34 books for children, published between 1907 and 1940, taking into account their consideration and diffusion. The results revealed an important relevance of this children's literature, which attracted the talents of reputable writers and illustrators and, added to the priority of publishing houses for producing quality books, brought institutional recognition and the strong educational validation of the importance of children's literature; all of this with an evident and powerful cultural European influence.