This is the first volume to consider the popular literary category of Early Readers - 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 children's 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 children's texts that have been translated and sold around the globe, examining them as part of an increasingly transnational children's media culture that may add to or supplant regional, ethnic, and national children's 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.

The fairy tales collected by the brothers Grimm are among the best known and most widely-read stories in western literature. In recent years commentators such as Bruno Bettelheim have, usually from a psychological perspective, pondered the underlying meaning of the stories, why children are so enthralled by them, and what effect they have on the developing child. In this book, Ronald Murphy takes five of the best-known tales ("Hansel and Gretel," "Little Red Riding Hood," "Cinderella," "Snow White," and "Sleeping Beauty") and shows that the Grimms saw them as Christian fables. Murphy examines the arguments of previous interpreters of the tales, and demonstrates how they missed the Grimms' intention. His own readings of the five so-called "magical" tales reveal them as the beautiful and inspiring "documents of faith" that the Grimms meant them to be. Offering an entirely new perspective on these often-analysed tales, Murphy's book will appeal to those concerned with the moral and religious education of children, to students and scholars of folk literature and children's literature, and to the many general readers who are captivated by fairy tales and their meanings.

* Fully updated and streamlined Companion Website to supplement the new edition * Expanded attention to methods on teaching disciplinary literacy and nonfiction * Updated with current research and practices, the new edition contains new tools, strategies and examples of contemporary teaching practices, in the classroom, in virtual classrooms, and online and blended settings

Children's literature takes many forms - works adapted for children in antiquity, picture books and pop-ups - and now includes the latest online games and eBooks. This vast and amorphous subject is both intimately related to other areas of literary and cultural investigation but also has its own set of concerns, issues and challenges. From familiar authors including Beatrix Potter and Roald Dahl, classic books such as Pooh, Alice in Wonderland, and The Secret Garden, to modern works including Harry Potter and the Twilight series, thisVery Short Introduction provides an overview of the history of children's literature as it has developed in English, whilst at the same time introducing key debates, developments, and figures in the field. Raising questions about what shape the future of literature for children should take, and exploring the crossover with adult fiction, Reynolds shows that writing for children - whether on page or screen - has participated in shaping and directing ideas about culture, society and childhood. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

'Once upon a time in mid-winter, when the snowflakes were falling from the sky like down, a queen was sitting and sewing at a window ...' The tales gathered by the Grimm brothers are at once familiar, fantastic, homely, and frightening. They seem to belong to no time, or to some distant feudal age of fairytale imagining. Grand palaces, humble cottages, and the forest full of menace are their settings; and they are peopled by kings and princesses, witches and robbers, millers and golden birds, stepmothers and talking frogs. Regarded from their inception both as uncosy nursery stories and as raw material for the folklorist the tales were in fact compositions, collected from literate tellers and shaped into a distinctive kind of literature. This translation mirrors the apparent artlessness of the Grimms, and fully represents the range of less well-known fables, morality tales, and comic stories as well as the classic tales. It takes the stories back to their roots in German Romanticism and includes variant stories and tales that were deemed unsuitable for children. In her fascinating introduction, Joyce Crick explores their origins, and their literary evolution at the hands of the Grimms.

Children's Literature and Intergenerational Relationships: Encounters of the Playful Kind explores ways in which children's literature becomes the object and catalyst of play that brings younger and older generations closer to one another. Providing examples from diverse cultural and historical contexts, this collection argues that children's texts promote intergenerational play through the use of literary devices and graphic formats and that they may prompt joint play practices in the real world. The book offers a distinctive contribution to children's literature scholarship by shifting critical attention away from the difference and conflict between children and adults to the exploration of inter-age interdependencies as equally crucial aspects of human life, presenting a new perspective for all who research and work with children's culture in times of global aging.

Die einundzwanzigste Folge des Jahrbuchs bietet Beitrage von Florian Krobb zur exotischen Abenteuerliteratur und von Bernd Dolle-Weinkauff zum Kriegsbilderbuch wahrend des wilhelminischen Kaiserreichs sowie von Peter Neumann uber seine Kindheits- und Jugendlekturen wahrend der Zeit des "III. Reichs". Hans-Heino Ewers befasst sich mit dem Verhaltnis Michael Endes zur deutschen Romantik und die Kairoer Germanistin Nermine El Sharkawy untersucht die interkulturell ausgerichtete Literatur junger muslimischer Autorinnen. Reinbert Tabbert dokumentiert den Prozess der Entstehung eines Bilderbuchs von Binette Schroeder, und Gudrun Marci-Boehncke untersucht die Perspektiven der Kinder- und Jugendliteratur in der modernen digitalen Welt. Die 21. Folge schliesst das Jahrbuch bei Peter Lang ab.

This book offers fresh critical insights to the field of children's literature translation studies by applying the concept of transcreation, established in the creative industries of the globalized world, to bring to the fore the transformative, transgressional and creative aspects of rewriting for children and young audiences. This socially situated and culturally dependent practice involves ongoing complex negotiations between creativity and normativity, balancing text-related problems and genre conventions with readers' expectations, constraints imposed by established, canonical translations and publishers' demands. Focussing on the translator's strategies and decision-making process, the book investigates phenomena where transcreation is especially at play in children's literature, such as dual address, ambiguity, nonsense, humour, play on words and other creative language use; these also involve genre-specific requirements, for example, rhyme and rhythm in poetry. The book draws on a wide range of mostly Anglophone texts for children and their translations into languages of limited diffusion to demonstrate the numerous ways in which information, meaning and emotions are transferred to new linguistic and cultural contexts. While focussing mostly on interlingual transfer, the volume analyses a variety of translation types from established, canonical renditions by celebrity translators to non-professional translations and intralingual rewritings. It also examines iconotextual dynamics of text and image. The book employs a number of innovative methodologies, from cognitive linguistics and ethnolinguistics to semiotics and autoethnographic approaches, going beyond text analysis to include empirical research on children's reactions to translation strategies. Highlighting the complex dynamics at work in the process of transcreating for children, this volume is essential reading for students and researchers in translation studies, children's fiction and adaptation studies.

From the best-selling author of The Tall Man and The Arsonist, a personal tale about death, life and the enchantment of stories. With illustrations by Anna Walker. Let me tell you a story... When Chloe Hooper's partner is diagnosed with a rare and aggressive illness, she has to find a way to tell their two young sons. By instinct, she turns to the bookshelf. Can the news be broken as a bedtime tale? Is there a perfect book to prepare children for loss? Hooper embarks on a quest to find what practical lessons children's literature-with its innocent orphans and evil adults, magic, monsters and anthropomorphic animals-can teach about grief and resilience in real life. As she discovers, 'the right words are an incantation, a spell of hope for the future.' From the Brothers Grimm to Frances Hodgson Burnett and Tolkien and Dahl-all of whom suffered childhood bereavements-she follows the breadcrumbs of the world's favourite authors, searching for the deep wisdom in their books and lives. Both memoir and manual, Bedtime Story is stunningly illustrated by the New York Times award-winning Anna Walker. In an age of worldwide uncertainty, here is a profound and moving exploration of the dark and light of storytelling. 'Exquisitely beautiful. This book is an act of love.' Anna Funder, author of All That I Am and Stasiland 'Chloe Hooper has a formidable talent to take complex stories and ideas and truths, and to distil them into a language of direct and powerful beauty. This is a story of grief and of patience, of hope and acceptance. It is also a reminder of the solace that books give us, and of how the imaginary worlds we dive into as children remain with is for all our lives, of how they guide us into adulthood and maturity. There is a quiet courage and strength in this book. It is both gentle and uncompromising, a love letter to family and to literature that is bracingly unsentimental. I was profoundly moved, and profoundly grateful.' Christos Tsiolkas, author of The Slap and Damascus

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) was one of the most influential and controversial women of her age. No writer, except perhaps her political foe, Edmund Burke, and her fellow reformer, Thomas Paine, inspired more intense reactions. In her brief literary career before her untimely death in 1797, Wollstonecraft achieved remarkable success in an unusually wide range of genres: from education tracts and political polemics, to novels and travel writing. Just as impressive as her expansive range was the profound evolution of her thinking in the decade when she flourished as an author. In this collection of essays, leading international scholars reveal the intricate biographical, critical, cultural, and historical context crucial for understanding Mary Wollstonecraft's oeuvre. Chapters on British radicalism and conservatism, French philosophes and English Dissenters, constitutional law and domestic law, sentimental literature, eighteenth-century periodicals and more elucidate Wollstonecraft's social and political thought, historical writings, moral tales for children, and novels.

This book examines constructions of childhood in the works of Louisa May Alcott. While Little Women continues to gain popular and critical attention, Alcott's wider works for children have largely been consigned to history. This book therefore investigates Alcott's lesser-known children's texts to reconsider critical assumptions about childhood in her works and in literature more widely. Kristina West investigates the trend towards reading Alcott's life into her works; readings of gender and sexuality, race, disability, and class; the sentimental domestic; portrayals of Transcendentalism and American education; and adaptations of these works. Analyzing Alcott as a writer for twenty-first-century children, West considers Alcott's place in the children's canon and how new media and fan fiction impact readings of her works today.

The Fairy Tale World is a definitive volume on this ever-evolving field. The book draws on recent critical attention, contesting romantic ideas about timeless tales of good and evil, and arguing that fairy tales are culturally astute narratives that reflect the historical and material circumstances of the societies in which they are produced. The Fairy Tale World takes a uniquely global perspective and broadens the international, cultural, and critical scope of fairy-tale studies. Throughout the five parts, the volume challenges the previously Eurocentric focus of fairy-tale studies, with contributors looking at: * the contrast between traditional, canonical fairy tales and more modern reinterpretations; * responses to the fairy tale around the world, including works from every continent; * applications of the fairy tale in diverse media, from oral tradition to the commercialized films of Hollywood and Bollywood; * debates concerning the global and local ownership of fairy tales, and the impact the digital age and an exponentially globalized world have on traditional narratives; * the fairy tale as told through art, dance, theatre, fan fiction, and film. This volume brings together a selection of the most respected voices in the field, offering ground-breaking analysis of the fairy tale in relation to ethnicity, colonialism, feminism, disability, sexuality, the environment, and class. An indispensable resource for students and scholars alike, The Fairy Tale World seeks to discover how such a traditional area of literature has remained so enduringly relevant in the modern world.

The purpose of this volume is to present the scientific background of the Children's Literature and Translation research group, which was established in 1992 at the University of Vigo. In 2006 it was awarded the category of Excellence Research Group. The scientific activities of members over the twenty years it has been in existence have contributed to improving and intensifying research into children's literature in Spain and also to raising its scientific status. The group has strengthened collaboration with other Spanish universities and opened fruitful cooperation with foreign research centres. This book shows some new research lines we are focussing on and reflects current research trends in Children's Literature in Spanish universities.

Reading Children's Literature: A Critical Introduction offers insights into the major discussions and debates currently animating the field of children's literature. Informed by recent scholarship and interest in cultural studies and critical theory, it is a compact core text that introduces students to the historical contexts, genres, and issues of children's literature. A beautifully designed and illustrated supplement to individual literary works assigned, it also provides helpful apparatus that makes it a complete resource for working with children's literature both during and after the course. The second edition includes a new chapter on children's literature and popular culture (including film, television, and merchandising) and has been updated throughout to reflect recent scholarship and new offerings in children's media.

It is often assumed that picturebooks are for very young readers because of their emphasis on the illustrations and their scarcity of text; however, there are increasing numbers of picturebooks where the age of the implied reader is questionable. These are picturebooks whose controversial subject matter and unconventional, often unsettling style of illustration challenge the reader, pushing them to question and probe deeper to understand what the book is about. In addition to the book challenging the reader, the reader often challenges the book in an attempt to understand what is being said. These increasingly popular picturebooks work on many different levels; they are truly polysemic and worthy of in-depth analysis. They push the reader to ask questions and in many instances are intrinsically philosophical, often dealing with fundamental life issues. Challenging and Controversial Picturebooks examines these unconventional, non-conformist picturebooks, considering what they are, their audience and their purpose. It also considers: Children's and adults' thoughts on these kinds of picturebooks. How challenging and unsettling wordless picturebooks can play with the mind and promote philosophical thought. What creates non-conformity and strangeness ... is it the illustrations and their style, the subject matter or a combination of both? Why certain countries create, promote and accept these picturebooks more than others. Why certain picturebooks are censored and what factors are in play when these decisions are made. The role of publishers in translating and publishing these picturebooks. Children's creative and critical responses to strange, unsettling and often disturbing visual texts. This inspiring and thought-provoking volume explores the work of a number of highly respected, international picturebook experts and includes an exclusive interview with the legendary Klaus Flugge, Managing Director of Andersen Press, one of the few remaining independent children's book publishers in England. It is an indispensable reference for all interested in or working with picturebooks, including researchers, students in higher and teacher education, English advisors/inspectors, literacy consultants and classroom teachers.

This book investigates major linguistic transformations in the translation of children's literature, focusing on the English-language translations of Janusz Korczak, a Polish-Jewish children's writer known for his innovative pedagogical methods as the head of a Warsaw orphanage for Jewish children in pre-war Poland. The author outlines fourteen tendencies in translated children's literature, including mitigation, simplification, stylization, hyperbolization, cultural assimilation and fairytalization, in order to analyse various translations of King Matt the First, Big Business Billy and Kaytek the Wizard. The author then addresses the translators' treatment of racial issues based on the socio-cultural context. The book will be of use to students and researchers in the field of translation studies, and researchers interested in children's literature or Janusz Korczak.

Unter dem Rahmenthema "Emotionen" fand am 15./16. April 2016 auf dem Campus Gotland der Universitat Uppsala die 12. Arbeitstagung schwedischer Germanistinnen und Germanisten "Text im Kontext" statt. Der vorliegende Band versammelt ausgewahlte Beitrage, die in ihrer Vielfalt ein aktuelles Bild der Forschungsansatze und -projekte der Germanistik in Schweden vermitteln. Das Spektrum der Beitrage reicht von der Digitalisierung von Stammbuchern aus funf Jahrhunderten bis zur Analyse von Metonymien in den Medien, von Fragen des transkulturellen Erzahlens bis zu neuen Formen der Literatur im Zeitalter der Digitalisierung. Eine Untersuchung des Zusammenhangs von metasprachlichem Wissen und Grammatikkenntnissen bei schwedischen Deutschschulern rundet den Band ab. Der Band belegt, dass der Begriff der "Emotionen" sich als geeigneter Ausgangspunkt fur den Dialog von Literaturwissenschaft und Sprachwissenschaft erweist; als verbindende Elemente fungieren vor allem kulturwissenschaftliche Ansatze.

This book considers the English Civil Wars and the civil wars in Scotland and Ireland through the lens of historical fiction-primarily fiction for the young. The text argues that the English Civil War lies at the heart of English and Irish political identities and considers how these identities have been shaped over the past three centuries in part by the children's literature that has influenced the popular memory of the English Civil War. Examining nearly two hundred works of historical fiction, Farah Mendlesohn reveals the delicate interplay between fiction and history.

Der kommunikative und publikumswirksame Erfolg grosser internationaler Vergleichsstudien zur Bildung hat dazu gefuhrt, dass zunehmend Bildungsdebatten weltweit darauf Bezug nehmen. Hiermit befasst sich die Publikation. Sie versteht Bildung als Kulturmuster und arbeitet mit einem diskurstheoretischen Ansatz. Dadurch gelingt es, die Voraussetzungen, aber auch die Widerspruche im Gegenstandsfeld aufzuspuren und zu beschreiben. Die Arbeit geht der Bedeutung von Sprache und Literatur nach, die in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart in Bildungsaussagen eine vorrangige, aber in verschiedenen Landern gerade nicht dieselbe Bedeutung haben, und entwirft Alternativen zu vermeintlich selbstverstandlichen, bislang angebotenen Programmen und Aufgaben.

Narratives of disease and deviance have a long tradition within the field of children's and young adult literature. The specific characteristics of these representations have so far remained largely unexplored. The topics of this book are the narrato-logical and aesthetical particularities of these discourses. Krankheits- und Abweichungsnarrative haben im Feld der Kinder- und Jugendmedien eine lange Tradition, deren Spezifik bisher nahezu unerforscht geblieben ist. Die Beitrage fokussieren und diskutieren medien- und epochenubergreifend narratologische und asthetische Eigen- und Besonderheiten dieser Darstellungen.

Science fiction is often considered the genre of ideas and imagination, which would seem to make it ideal for juveniles and young adults; however, the ideas are often dispensed by adults. This book considers the development of science fiction for children and teens between 1950 and 2010, exploring why it differs from science fiction aimed at adults. In a broader sense, this critical examination of 400 texts sheds light on changing attitudes toward children and teenagers, toward science education, and toward the authors' expectations and sociological views of their audience.

Building on recent critical work, this volume offers a comprehensive consideration of the nature and forms of medieval and early modern childhoods, viewed through literary cultures. Its five groups of thematic essays range across a spectrum of disciplines, periods, and locations, from cultural anthropology and folklore to performance studies and the history of science, and from Anglo-Saxon burial sites to colonial America. Contributors include several renowned writers for children. The opening group of essays, Educating Children, explores what is perhaps the most powerful social engine for the shaping of a child. Performing Childhood addresses children at work and the role of play in the development of social imitation and learning. Literatures of Childhood examines texts written for children that reveal alternative conceptions of parent/child relations. In Legacies of Childhood, expressions of grief at the loss of a child offer a window into the family's conceptions and values. Finally, Fictionalizing Literary Cultures for Children considers the real, material child versus the fantasy of the child as a subject.

Die neunzehnte Folge des Jahrbuchs widmet sich der Kinder- und Jugendliteraturforschung im transnationalen Kontext mit dem zweiten Teil von Ave Mattheus' Studie uber die estnische Kinder- und Jugendliteratur und dem Bericht uber die Siegener Forschungsstelle zur europaischen Kinder- und Jugendliteratur. Andre Kagelmann befasst sich mit den vergessenen Kinderbuchern Thea von Harbous. Auch die weiteren gegenwartsbezogenen Beitrage beweisen erneut, dass auch die Erforschung des breiten Spektrums aktueller Kinder- und Jugendmedien ihren Platz haben soll, wie die Ausfuhrungen uber Kinderbuchillustration, Manga und Medienverbunde zeigen. Daruber hinaus kommen klassische Literaturgattungen zur Sprache: die zeitgeschichtliche Erzahlung fur junge Leser und der moderne Jugendroman mit seinen vielfaltigen Auspragungen.

TV-Serien, Filme und Computerspieladaptionen gehoeren ebenso wie Smartphones und Tablet-Computer heute zum Alltag von Kindern und Jugendlichen. Mit der Ausdifferenzierung der Medien wandeln sich kinder- und jugendliterarische Formen und Themen. Texte werden im Verbund produziert und vermarktet und im Medienzusammenhang rezipiert. Die Grenzen zwischen Produktion und Rezeption, aber auch zwischen den Medien werden offener. So werden kinder- und jugendliterarische Stoffe haufig medienubergreifend entwickelt. Nicht zuletzt zeigen sich die Austauschprozesse in vielfaltigen intertextuellen Bezugen, in denen die Kinder- und Jugendliteratur auf andere Medien verweist. Die Beitrage des vorliegenden Bandes beleuchten die skizzierten Phanomene mit ihren oekonomischen, asthetischen, individuellen und didaktischen Aspekten und Konsequenzen. Dabei werden sowohl historische Entwicklungen als auch aktuelle Perspektiven betrachtet.

Contemporary picturebooks open up spaces for philosophical dialogues between people of all ages. As works of art, picturebooks offer unique opportunities to explore ideas and to create meaning collaboratively. This book considers censorship of certain well-known picturebooks, challenging the assumptions on which this censorship is based. Through a lively exploration of children's responses to these same picturebooks the authors paint a way of working philosophically based on respectful listening and creative and authentic interactions, rather than scripted lessons. This dialogical process challenges much current practice in education. The authors propose that a courageous and critical practice of listening is central to the facilitation of mutually educative dialogue. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of education studies, philosophy of education, literacy teaching and learning, children's literature, childhood and pedagogy.