This is a passage from International Companion Encyclopedia of Children’s Literature’s entry on Iran:
The growing success of children’s literature in Iran can be seen clearly in the development of research, criticism and literary theory in the field. While the IIDCY has been crippled by its intense dependence upon government and became incapable of an influential role in children’s literature, CBCI has continued to succeed. Mohammad Hadi Mohammadi and Zohreh Ghaeni have taken steps to actualize the self-identity of our children’s literature by writing The History of Children’s Literature in Iran. The birth of two valuable journals Child and Youth Monthly Iranian Book Review and The Research Quarterly of Children’s and Youth’s Literature under the editorship of Mehdi Hejvani, writer and critic of children’s literature, has created a fertile land for cultivating a new generation of researchers, critics, and independent theoreticians. Ali Asghar Seyyedabadi and Hossein Sheikholeslami are of this new generation who have opened a critical dialogue with the previous generation based on new literary theories. It is worth mentioning that in recent years the universities have dealt more seriously with research and literary theory in children’s literature. Apart from the courses on Children’s Literature and Storytelling presented in education sciences faculties and librarianship departments, a growing tendency is seen towards research for MA and PhD dissertations. The first academic conference in children’s literature was held in Birjand University and the first PhD dissertation on the theoretical bases of children’s literature was defended on national level in Shiraz University, both in the 2003.
International Companion Encyclopedia of Children’s Literature, Second Edition, Volume 2, Edited by Peter Hunt, pp.1095-1098.
