Books for children and young people often play an important role in the process through which children are introduced into the world of books and reading. We have thus chosen to study fictionalised representations of the process of initiation into the world of written texts and the ways in which practices revolving around traditional and/or popular orality are set aside in favour of written communication. Our analysis will be centred more specifically on La Fortune de Gaspard by The Countess of Ségur, Sans Famille by Hector Malot, and Les Ailes de courage by George Sand, three stories in which the tensions provoked by the transition from an oral to a legitimate written culture constitute the main theme or one of the accessory themes of the fiction. The ethnocritical reading which we propose makes it possible to observe the diverse approaches to culture displayed in the texts (predominance of written communication, the persistence of oral practices, cultural conflicts and compromises) and the ways in which they are represented in literature written during the period which witnessed the generalisation of literacy.