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The paper intends to offer an in-depth analysis of Antonio Gramsci's contribution to the reflection on children's literature, whose non existence, in the years in which the intellectual writes the Quaderni from the fascist prison, leads to a "nexus of problems" concerning the lack of a national popular Italian literature. There are many suggestions that rose through the interest shown by Gramsci, on various fronts, towards children's literature: from the 'public' Gramsci of the Quaderni to the 'private' Gramsci of the Lettere, from the affirmation of the need for literary enjoyment of the people to the exemplary exercise of a 'living paternity', we not only grasp an example of method, but also a militant pedagogical commitment to the people/childhood world expressed with extraordinary clarity, rigor, sensitivity, yet to be investigated to rediscover its richness and actuality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the article are presented Slovenian women fairy tale writers who were included in the streams of fairy tale writing in the middle of the 19th century, when Josipina Turnograjska published the fairy tale “Rožmanova Lenčica” (Rožman’s Lenčica) in 1853. This is much later than the start of European women fairy tale writing, which has its roots in the late medieval period with the trobairitz, and continued in the 16th century. After that the new stream of women fairy tale writers developed with the preciosite in the 17th century. The author researches development of women fairy tale writing in Slovenia and classifies their creation of fairy tales in two main models: writing literary fairy tales and storytelling or performing folktales. Lately, among Slovenian women, writing contemporary fairy tales is also popular.

This article presents, with the help of comparative analysis, fairy tales included into Slovenian curriculum and textbooks of various publishers for upper level of primary school. The main part of the discussion represents all the texts with fairy-tale elements that are included in the analysed literary learning books from the genre and motif point of view. Each interpretation of the text includes didactic and literary instruments that present fairy tale elements to pupils.