Children's play, as a main activity in a child's life, is an unavoidable component of children's novels. In terms of content and form, the children's novel is a phenomenon of innovative poetics in which the child‘s image of the social community is modeled. Given that children's literature is intended exclusively for children, the topic needs to be modeled purposefully for children's perception. The authors of Croatian children's literature were also well aware of this from the very beginning. Therefore, play has always had a significant role in Croatian children's novels but its appearance and interpretations depend on the socio-historical context. In order to establish the differences, the paper studies the approach to the child and play in the Croatian children's novel in the period from 1913 to 1999. Starting from the novels by Ivana Brlić-Maţuranić, through the works of Jagoda Truhelka, Mate Lovrak, Ivan Kušan, Hrvoje Hitrec to Sanja Pilić, Zlatko Krilić, Nikola Pulić and others, the approach to children's literature and children's play through history is analyzed. The appearance and presentation of play in children's novels are conditioned by political and social situations, current social relations, gender stereotypes, social trends, for instance relations towards animals, relations between the village and the city, etc., but the play, in all its – even very different – forms, remained the most significant children's activity, in the novel and beyond.