Bücher der Reihe Children's Literature and Culture

First Published in 2001. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This is the first volume to consider the popular literary category of Early Readers ΓÇô books written and designed for children who are just beginning to read independently. It argues that Early Readers deserve more scholarly attention and careful thought because they are, for many younger readers, their first opportunity to engage with a work of literature on their own, to feel a sense of mastery over a text, and to experience pleasure from the act of reading independently. Using interdisciplinary approaches that draw upon and synthesize research being done in education, child psychology, sociology, cultural studies, and childrenΓÇÖs literature, the volume visits Early Readers from a variety of angles: as teaching tools; as cultural artifacts that shape cultural and individual subjectivity; as mass produced products sold to a niche market of parents, educators, and young children; and as aesthetic objects, works of literature and art with specific conventions. Examining the reasons such books are so popular with young readers, as well as the reasons that some adults challenge and censor them, the volume considers the ways Early Readers contribute to the construction of younger children as readers, thinkers, consumers, and as gendered, raced, classed subjects. It also addresses childrenΓÇÖs texts that have been translated and sold around the globe, examining them as part of an increasingly transnational childrenΓÇÖs media culture that may add to or supplant regional, ethnic, and national childrenΓÇÖs literatures and cultures. While this collection focuses mostly on books written in English and often aimed at children living in the US, it is important to acknowledge that these Early Readers are a major US cultural export, influencing the reading habits and development of children across the globe.

Expanding outward from previous scholarship on gender, queerness and heteronormativity in children¿s literature, this book offers fresh insights into representations of sex and sexuality in texts for young people.

This book situates the picturebook genre within the widespread international phenomenon of crossover literature, examining an international corpus of picturebooks - including artists' books, wordless picturebooks, and celebrity picturebooks - that appeal to readers of all ages. Focusing on contemporary picturebooks, Sandra Beckett shows that the picturebook has traditionally been seen as a children's genre, but in the eyes of many authors, illustrators, and publishers, it is a narrative form that can address any and all age groups. Innovative graphics and formats as well as the creative, often complex dialogue between text and image provide multiple levels of meaning and invite readers of all ages to consider texts that are primarily marketed as children's books. The interplay of text and image that distinguishes the picturebook from other forms of fiction and makes it a unique art form also makes it the ultimate crossover genre. Crossover picturebooks are often very complex texts that are challenging for adults as well as children. Many are characterized by difficult "e;adult"e; themes, genre blending, metafictive discourse, intertextuality, sophisticated graphics, and complex text-image interplay. Exciting experiments with new formats and techniques, as well as novel interactions with new media and technologies have made the picturebook one of the most vibrant and innovative contemporary literary genres, one that seems to know no boundaries. Crossover Picturebooks is a valuable addition to the study of a genre that is gaining increasing recognition and appreciation, and contributes significantly to the field of children's literature as a whole.

This book addresses the relationship between children and cultural memory in texts both for and about young people. The collection overall is concerned with how cultural memory is shaped, contested, forgotten, recovered, and (re)circulated, sometimes in opposition to dominant national narratives, and often for the benefit of young readers w

The last two decades have seen an enormous growth in the critical study of two very different genres, the Gothic and children's literature. This collection examines the early intersection of the Gothic and children's literature and the contemporary manifestations of the gothic impulse.

"Recommended" by ChoiceThis collection of literary and historical criticism draws on recent scholarship on canon formation, gender studies, and cultural studies both to show how concepts of public/private, male/female, and national/foreign operated in nineteenth-century children's literature and to explore how this literature transmitted hegemonic notions of American citizenship and cultural values.

This book offers new critical approaches for the study of adaptations, abridgments, translations, parodies, and mash-ups that occur internationally in contemporary children''s culture. It follows recent shifts in adaptation studies that call for a move beyond fidelity criticism, a paradigm that measures the success of an adaptation by the level of fidelity to the "original" text, toward a methodology that considers the adaptation to be always already in conversation with the adapted text. This book visits children''s literature and culture in order to consider the generic, pedagogical, and ideological underpinnings that drive both the process and the product. Focusing on novels as well as folktales, films, graphic novels, and anime, the authors consider the challenges inherent in transforming the work of authors such as William Shakespeare, Charles Perrault, L.M. Montgomery, Laura Ingalls Wilder, and A.A. Milne into new forms that are palatable for later audiences particularly when-for perceived ideological or political reasons-the textual transformation is not only unavoidable but entirely necessary. Contributors consider the challenges inherent in transforming stories and characters from one type of text to another, across genres, languages, and time, offering a range of new models that will inform future scholarship.

This book explores the meaning of nation or nationalism in children's literature and how it constructs and represents different national experiences. The contributors discuss diverse aspects of children's literature and film from interdisciplinary and multicultural approaches, ranging from the short story and novel to science fiction and fantasy from a range of locations.

This book offers insights into the typically overlooked perspectives of children and children's culture in Europe, North America and the Global South, and Australia during the period around the First World War, engaging with developments in Children's Literature, War Studies, and Education.

This book addresses a gap in the critical literature between adult Gothic narrative and children's and YA literature in the Gothic tradition. The volume asks how this literature helps readers contextualize and understand their psychological and social environments during periods of cultural change, global terror, and economic uncertainty.

Offering new perspectives in childhood studies and animal studies, this book critically addresses children and pets in our families, our cultures, and our societies, exploring issues such as protection, discipline, mastery, wildness, play, and domestication.

With a Preface by Perry Nodelman, this book represents the current state of research on picturebooks and adjacent hybrid forms such as comics, graphic novels, and book apps for and about young people.

The Embodied Child: Readings in Children's Literature and Culture is an innovative and timely collection of essays that offers rich analyses of children's bodies as they are constructed in literature and popular culture.

This is the first scholarly volume to analyze Anglophone children's book awards in historical and cultural context. With attention to both political and aesthetic concerns, it offers original and diverse scholarship on prizing practices and their consequences in Australia, Canada, and especially the US.

This volume explores the pervasiveness of lying as well as the necessity for lying in our society; the origins of lying as connected to language acquisition, and the realization that storytelling is both lying and truthtelling.