Youth Fiction and Trans Representation is the first book that wholly addresses the growth of trans and gender variant representation in literature, television, and films for children and young adults in the twenty-first century. Ranging across an array of media-including picture books, novels, graphic novels, animated cartoons, and live-action television and feature films-Youth Fiction and Trans Representation examines how youth texts are addressing and contributing to ongoing shifts in understandings of gender in the new millennium. While perhaps once considered inappropriate for youth, and continuing to face backlash, trans and gender variant representation in texts for young people has become more common, which signals changes in understandings of childhood and adolescence, as well as gender expression and identity. Youth Fiction and Trans Representation provides a broad outline of developments in trans and gender variant depictions for young people in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries and closely analyzes a series of millennial literary and screen texts to consider how they communicate a range of, often competing, ideas about gender, identity, expression, and embodiment to implied child and adolescent audiences.

Italian children's literature has a diverse and unusual tradition of fantasy. With the exception of Carlo Collodi's Pinocchio, however, it has remained almost entirely unknown outside of Italy. Why is it that Italian children's fantasy has remained such a well-kept secret? How 'international' is the term 'fantasy', and to what extent has its development been influenced by local as well as global factors? Cross-cultural and cross-linguistic research into this neglected area is essential if we are to enrich our understanding of this important literary genre. This book charts the history and evolution of Italian children's fantasy, from its first appearance in the 1870s to the present day. It traces the structural and thematic progression of the genre in Italy and situates this development against the changing backdrop of Italian culture, society and politics. The author argues that ever since the foundation of Italy as a nation-state the Italian people have been actively involved in an ongoing process of identity formation and that the development of children's fantasy texts has been inextricably intertwined with sociopolitical and cultural imperatives.

The purpose of the book is to emphasize the role of some women writers (who lived from 19th century to the present) who have devoted a large part of their editorial production to the field of children's literature. Specifically, the research aims at highlighting how the female contribution has modified the antiquated structures and categories used within the literature for childhood. These writers proposed in their books dissonant and divergent characters compared to the custom of having courageous boys and silent and submissive girls as protagonists. Finally, the pedagogical value of some topics that appear repeatedly in their works is emphasized in order to make them fully usable at an educational level. The chapters also offer a comparative look at some European realities thanks to the scientific contribution of researchers from various geographical and scientific areas such as Italy, Slovenia, Russia, Greece, Austria, Germany, Poland, Portugal, UK and USA.

This is a unique and interdisciplinary study offering a fresh perspective on recorded sound, challenging our assumptions about reading, listening, and the processes of choice and interpretation. The intersection of the sonic and the literary will appeal to a range of subjects including sound studies, cultural studies, media studies and literature. The crisp and lively writing style draws readers into a compelling central argument regarding how media is produced and consumed, both commercially and hermeneutically.

This book is a study of the evolving relationships between literature, cyberspace, and young adults in the twenty-first century. Megan L. Musgrave explores the ways that young adult fiction is becoming a platform for a public conversation about the great benefits and terrible risks of our increasing dependence upon technology in public and private life. Drawing from theories of digital citizenship and posthuman theory, Digital Citizenship in Twenty-First Century Young Adult Literature considers how the imaginary forms of activism depicted in literature can prompt young people to shape their identities and choices as citizens in a digital culture

For over a century British authors have been writing about the Antarctic for child readers, yet this body of literature has never been explored in detail. Antarctica in British Children's Literature examines this field for the first time, identifying the dominant genres and recurrent themes and tropes while interrogating how this landscape has been constructed as a wilderness within British literature for children. The text is divided into two sections. Part I focuses on the stories of early-twentieth-century explorers such as Robert F. Scott and Ernest Shackleton. Antarctica in British Children's Literature highlights the impact of children's literature on the expedition writings of Robert Scott, including the influence of Scott's close friend, author J.M. Barrie. The text also reveals the important role of children's literature in the contemporary resurgence of interest in Scott's long-term rival Ernest Shackleton. Part II focuses on fictional narratives set in the Antarctic, including early-twentieth-century whaling literature, adventure and fantasy texts, contemporary animal stories and environmental texts for children. Together these two sections provide an insight into how depictions of this unique continent have changed over the past century, reflecting transformations in attitudes towards wilderness and wild landscapes.

This book looks at the humor that artists and editors believed would have appeal in four different countries. Ian Gordon explains how similar humor played out in comic strips across different cultures and humor styles. By examining Skippy and Ginger Meggs, the book shows a good deal of similarities between American and Australian humor while establishing some distinct differences. In examining the French translation of Perry Winkle, the book explores questions of language and culture. By shifting focus to a later period and looking at the American and British comics entitled Dennis the Menace, two very different comics bearing the same name, Kid Comic Strips details both differences in culture and traditions and the importance of the type of reader imagined by the artist.

Fills a critical need in the field of English teacher education by focusing solely on designing and implementing literature-based units of study Practical guidance is underpinned by an examination of the theoretical foundations for teaching ELA, allowing readers to make clear decisions about their content pedagogy Appendices include samples of unit plans along with other useful resources Includes a wealth of examples Supports the National Council of Teachers of English standards for Pre-Service ELA teachers, and provides activities and information aligned with the Education Teacher Preparation Assessment (edTPA)

Fills a critical need in the field of English teacher education by focusing solely on designing and implementing literature-based units of study Practical guidance is underpinned by an examination of the theoretical foundations for teaching ELA, allowing readers to make clear decisions about their content pedagogy Appendices include samples of unit plans along with other useful resources Includes a wealth of examples Supports the National Council of Teachers of English standards for Pre-Service ELA teachers, and provides activities and information aligned with the Education Teacher Preparation Assessment (edTPA)

Equipping Space Cadets: Primary Science Fiction for Young Children argues for the benefits and potential of "primary science fiction," or science fiction for children under twelve years old. Science fiction for children is often disregarded due to common misconceptions of childhood. When children are culturally portrayed as natural and simple, then they seem like a poor audience for the complex scientific questions brought up by the best science fiction. The books and the children who read them tell another story. Using three empirical studies and over 350 children's books including If I Had a Robot Dog, Bugs in Space, and Commander Toad in Space, Equipping Space Cadets presents interdisciplinary evidence that science fiction and children are compatible after all. Primary science fiction literature includes many high-quality books that cleverly utilize the features of children's literature formats in order to fit large science fiction questions into small packages. In the best of these books, authors make science fiction questions accessible and relevant to children of various reading levels and from diverse backgrounds and identities. Equipping Space Cadets does not stop with literary analysis, but also presents the voices of real children and practitioners. The book features three studies: a survey of teachers and librarians, quantitative analysis of lending records from school libraries across the United States, and coded read-aloud sessions with elementary school students. The results reveal how children are interested in and capable of reading science fiction, but it is the adults, including the most well-intentioned librarians and teachers, who hinder children's engagement with the genre due to their own preconceptions about the genre and children.

In The Transformative Potential of LGBTQ+ Children's Picture Books, Jennifer Miller identifies an archive of over 150 English-language children's picture books that explicitly represent LGBTQ+ identities, expressions, and issues. This archive is then analyzed to explore the evolution of LGBTQ+ characters and content from the 1970s to the present. Miller describes dominant tropes that emerge in the field to analyze historical shifts in representational practices, which she suggests parallel larger sociocultural shifts in the visibility of LGBTQ+ identities. Additionally, Miller considers material constraints and possibilities affecting the production, distribution, and consumption of LGBTQ+ children's picture books from the 1970s to the present. This foundational work defines the field of LGBTQ+ children's picture books thoroughly, yet accessibly. In addition to laying the groundwork for further research, The Transformative Potential of LGBTQ+ Children's Picture Books presents a reading lens, critical optimism, used to analyze the transformative potential of LGBTQ+ children's picture books. Many texts remain attached to heteronormative family forms and raced and classed models of success. However, by considering what these books put into the world, as well as problematic aspects of the world reproduced within them, Miller argues that LGBTQ+ children's picture books are an essential world-making project and seek to usher in a transformed world as well as a significant historical archive that reflects material and representational shifts in dominant and subcultural understandings of gender and sexuality.

What does it mean to become a reader? What are the challenges and opportunities of engaging children in reading for pleasure in the 21st century? This book explores the ways in which reading for pleasure is changing in the era of globalisation, multiculturalism and datafication. Raising the next generation of engaged readers requires knowledge of the enduring characteristics of engagement and markers of quality in books and e-books. In addition, in order to develop new insights into children's experience of reading on and off screen, nuanced understandings of psychological and socio-cultural research are offered. The cross-disciplinary examination integrates key research from educational psychology, new literacies, multimodality and socio-cultural perspectives and explores consequences for practice. An authoritative guide - it invites graduates, researchers and teachers to participate in the authors' interdisciplinary dialogue about reading for pleasure.

What is a princess story? In this subgenre, newly defined in The Princess Story, the protagonist either is a princess or is attempting to become one: the girl transforms into or identifies herself as a princess through marriage or through discovered identity, or both. Princess lessons often accompany this transformation, lessons that not only educate the fictional girl but also the reader. Cultural expectations and anxieties about the roles of girls and women are transmitted through princess stories, and the dialogic nature of feminism and patriarchy, forces for progress and forces for tradition, can be explored through their study. In this book, feminism and progress are embodied by the first, second, and third wave of feminist princess stories; patriarchy and tradition are represented by Disney Studios' princess stories. All of these stories influenced their readers, some of whom grew up to write their own princess stories, stories that reflected and - they hoped - furthered their ideological goals. Princess stories of the early 2000s are compelling in that they tensely balance romance and feminist assumptions. Anyone interested in folklore studies, feminist studies, children's literature, Disney studies, film adaptations, psychology, sociology, or theories of child development will find The Princess Story: Modeling the Feminine in Twentieth-Century American Fiction and Film essential reading. When contemplating the changes made by feminists to American culture, no one figure is as worth examining as the fictional princess, and no book has yet approached the topic as thoroughly as this one.

This book explores the lives of young people through the lens of storytelling. Using extensive qualitative and empirical data from young people's conversations following storytelling performances in secondary schools in the UK, the author considers the benefits of stories and storytelling for learning and the subsequent emotional, behavioural and social connections to story and other genres of narrative. Storytelling has both global and transnational relevance in education, as it allows individuals to compare their experiences to others: young people learn through discussion that their opinions matter, that they are both similar to and different from their peers. This in turn can facilitate the development of critical thinking skills as well as encouraging social learning, co-operation and cohesion. Drawing upon folklore and literary studies as well as sociology, philosophy, youth studies and theatre, this volume explores how storytelling can shape the lives of young people through storytelling projects. This reflective and creative volume will appeal to students and scholars of storytelling, youth studies and folklore.

This book studies the dialectic relationship between the image of the child and the toy in literary depictions of childhood in 19th- and 20th- century Anglo-American fiction. Drawing from the psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud, Anna Freud, D.W. Winnicott, and Sudhir Kakar, it analyses themes such as the heterogeneity of childhood and the construction of the ideals of childhood. It explores the linkages between the ideals of childhood in Britain and its travel to America and further dissemination in British India. It discusses the established tropes of childhood such as innocence, a formative period, the centrality of play, and the presence of a toy to argue that the mores of childhood are culturally constructed and lead to the reification of a child into an image of perfection. The author problematises the notion of essential innocence and discusses the repercussions of such stereotypes about childhood. The work also highlights parallels between the ideals of childhood established in 19th-century Britain and the portrayals of postcolonial Indian childhoods in 20th-century Indian English literature. Toying with Childhood will be useful for students and researchers of education, childhood studies, psychology, sociology, literature, gender studies, and development studies. It will also appeal to general readers interested in cultural perceptions of childhood, literary depictions of children, and the works of Sigmund Freud.

The genesis of the history of British colonization in India is often traced to traders, merchants, and the formation of the British East India Company. While this is indisputable, what is ignored is the creation and perpetual fueling of the steady stream of British officers into the Indian economy that happened due to the continuing efforts of British people and society. How did this ensue? In the contemporary world when we talk of the transnational terror networks we are filled with awe when we find children being engineered to the vocation of violence. However, this was true even of the earlier times when writers (albeit politely!) hid the colonial ideology within their literature. The children perhaps were tantalized by the beauties abroad, by the tigers, the rhinos, the 'native' Rajas! The use of animal imagery was conspicuous in such literature. This kind of narrative discourse was targeted not only at baby patriots but also at young adults, appealing them with adventurous stories of colonization in India. Through stories, museums, objects; the British children were continuously bombarded with knowledge of the colonies and its alluring bounties. These could be obtained only if the children would study them religiously, internalize the process of travel and looting; and actually reach the destination to perpetuate the imperial agenda. This book encapsulates the agenda of consciously training British children through underscoring resources and fauna in India pursued by the British society in the nineteenth century Victorian England.

Contributions by Beverly Lyon Clark, Christine Doyle, Gregory Eiselein, John Matteson, Joel Myerson, Sandra Harbert Petrulionis, Anne K. Phillips, Daniel Shealy, and Roberta Seelinger Trites As the golden age of children's literature dawned in America in the mid-1860s, Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, a work that many scholars view as one of the first realistic novels for young people, soon became a classic. Never out of print, Alcott's tale of four sisters growing up in nineteenth-century New England has been published in more than fifty countries around the world. Over the century and a half since its publication, the novel has grown into a cherished book for girls and boys alike. Readers as diverse as Carson McCullers, Gloria Steinem, Theodore Roosevelt, Patti Smith, and J. K. Rowling have declared it a favorite. Little Women at 150, a collection of eight original essays by scholars whose research and writings over the past twenty years have helped elevate Alcott's reputation in the academic community, examines anew the enduring popularity of the novel and explores the myriad complexities of Alcott's most famous work. Examining key issues about philanthropy, class, feminism, Marxism, Transcendentalism, canon formation, domestic labor, marriage, and Australian literature, Little Women at 150 presents new perspectives on one of the United States' most enduring novels. A historical and critical introduction discusses the creation and publication of the novel, briefly traces the scholarly critical response, and demonstrates how these new essays show us that Little Women and its illustrations still have riches to reveal to its readers in the twenty-first century.

Rulers of Literary Playgrounds: Politics of Intergenerational Play in Children's Literature offers multifaceted reflection on interdependences between children and adults as they engage in play in literary texts and in real life. This volume brings together international children's literature scholars who each look at children's texts as key vehicles of intergenerational play reflecting ideologies of childhood and as objects with which children and adults interact physically, emotionally, and cognitively. Each chapter applies a distinct theoretical approach to selected children's texts, including individual and social play, constructive play, or play deprivation. This collection of essays constitutes a timely voice in the current discussion about the importance of children's play and adults' contribution to it vis-a-vis the increasing limitations of opportunities for children's playful time in contemporary societies.

ChicaNerds in Chicana Young Adult Literature analyzes novels by the acclaimed Chicana YA writers Jo Ann Yolanda Hernandez, Isabel Quintero, Ashley Hope Perez, Erika Sanchez, Guadalupe Garcia McCall, and Patricia Santana. Combining the term "Chicana" with "nerd," Dr. Herrera coins the term "ChicaNerd" to argue how the young women protagonists in these novels voice astute observations of their identities as nonwhite teenagers, specifically through a lens of nerdiness-a reclamation of brown girl self-love for being a nerd. In analyzing these ChicaNerds, the volume examines the reclamation and powerful acceptance of one's nerdy Chicana self. While popular culture and mainstream media have shaped the well-known figure of the nerd as synonymous with white maleness, Chicana YA literature subverts the nerd stereotype through its negation of this identity as always white and male. These ChicaNerds unite their burgeoning sociopolitical consciousness as young nonwhite girls with their "nerdy" traits of bookishness, math and literary intelligence, poetic talents, and love of learning. Combining the sociopolitical consciousness of Chicanisma with one aligned to the well-known image of the "nerd," ChicaNerds learn to navigate the many complicated layers of coming to an empowered declaration of themselves as smart Chicanas.

In a very short time, John Green has become an icon of young adult literature. His first novel, Looking for Alaska (2005) won the Michael Prinz award, Paper Towns (2008) received an Edgar Allan Poe award, and in 2014, Time magazine named him one its 100 Most Influential People. The Fault in Our Stars reached number one on the New York Times bestseller list, and the film adaptation was a worldwide hit. John Green: Teen Whisperer looks at the work of a versatile author whose works have fast become must-reads for teens and adults alike. After providing a biographical sketch of the author, subsequent chapters focus on different "types" of Green's writing: radio broadcasts, blogs, vlogs, YouTube videos, and, of course, his novels, including An Abundance of Katherines (2006) and Will Grayson, Will Grayson (2010). This volume concludes with an interview of Green and a unique final chapter that considers not only the young adult view of his work, but an adult perspective as well. Based on extensive research, this book captures the diverse elements of Green and his work: predictable, but surprising; stable, yet enigmatic; aloof, but deeply caring; hip, but homespun; irreverent, but deeply spiritual. Exploring why his writing reaches both teens and adults, John Green: Teen Whisperer will be of interest to librarians, scholars, and the author's many fans.

The eruption of rural distress in Ireland and the foundation of the Land League in 1879 sparked a number of novels, stories and plays forming an immediate response to what became known as the Irish Land war. These works form a literary genre of their own and illuminate both the historical events themselves and the material conditions of reading and writing in late nineteenth-century Ireland. Divisions into 'us' and 'them' were convenient for political reasons, but the fiction of the period frequently modifies this alignment and draws attention to the complexity of the land problem. This collection includes studies of canonical land war novels, publication channels, collaborations between artists and authors, literary conventions and the interplay between personal experience and literary output. It also includes unique resources such as a reprinted letter by the author Mary Anne Sadlier and a reproduction of Rosa Mulholland's little-known play Our Boycotting. The book concludes with a detailed bibliography of land war fiction between 1879 and 1916, which should inspire further reading and research into the genre.

The essays in this collection address 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 who are assumed not to possess any prior cultural memory. From the innovative development of school libraries in the 1920s to the role of utopianism in fixing cultural memory for teen readers, it provides a critical look into children and ideologies of childhood as they are represented in a broad spectrum of texts, including film, poetry, literature, and architecture from Canada, the United States, Japan, Germany, Britain, India, and Spain. These cultural forms collaborate to shape ideas and values, in turn contributing to dominant discourses about national and global citizenship. The essays included in the collection imply that childhood is an oft-imagined idealist construction based in large part on participation, identity, and perception; childhood is invisible and tangible, exciting and intriguing, and at times elusive even as cultural and literary artifacts recreate it. Children and Cultural Memory in Texts of Childhood is a valuable resource for scholars of children's literature and culture, readers interested in childhood and ideology, and those working in the fields of diaspora and postcolonial studies.

Recognizing the determination of a canon as an ongoing process of discussion and debate, which helps us to better understand the concept of meaningful and important literature, this edited collection turns a critical spotlight on young adult literature (YAL) to explore some of the most read, taught, and discussed books of our time. By considering the unique criteria which might underpin the classification of a YAL canon, this text raises critical questions of what it means to define canonicity and designate certain books as belonging to the YAL canon. Moving beyond ideas of what is taught or featured in textbooks, the volume emphasizes the role of adolescents' choice, the influence of popular culture, and above all the multiplicity of ways in which literature might be interpreted and reflected in the lives of young readers. Chapters examine an array of texts through varied critical lenses, offer detailed literary analyses and divergent interpretations, and consider how themes might be explored in pedagogical contexts. By articulating the ways in which teachers and young readers may have traditionally interpreted YAL, this volume will extend debate on canonicity and counter dominant narratives that posit YAL texts as undeserving of canonical status. This text will be of great interest to graduate and postgraduate students, academics, professionals, and libraries in the field of young adult literature, fiction literacy, children's literacy and feminist studies.

Whether a secularized morality, biblical worldview, or unstated set of mores, the Victorian period can and always will be distinguished from those before and after for its pervasive sense of the "proper way" of thinking, speaking, doing, and acting. Animals in literature taught Victorian children how to be behave. If you are a postmodern posthumanist, you might argue, "But the animals in literature did not write their own accounts." Animal characters may be the creations of writers' imagination, but animals did and do exist in their own right, as did and do humans. The original essays in Animals and Their Children in Victorian explore the representation of animals in children's literature by resisting an anthropomorphized perception of them. Instead of focusing on the domestication of animals, this book analyzes how animals in literature "civilize" children, teaching them how to get along with fellow creatures-both human and nonhuman.

This book is a literary analysis of J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan in all its different versions -- key rewritings, dramatisations, prequels, and sequels -- and includes a synthesis of the main critical interpretations of the text over its history. A comprehensive and intelligent study of the Peter Pan phenomenon, this study discusses the book's complicated textual history, exploring its origins in the Harlequinade theatrical tradition and British pantomime in the nineteenth century. Stirling investigates potential textual and extra-textual sources for Peter Pan, the critical tendency to seek sources in Barrie's own biography, and the proliferation of prequels and sequels aiming to explain, contextualize, or close off, Barrie's exploration of the imagination. The sources considered include Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson's Starcatchers trilogy, Regis Loisel's six-part Peter Pan graphic novel in French (1990-2004), Andrew Birkin's The Lost Boys series, the films Hook (1991), Peter Pan (2003) and Finding Neverland (2004), and Geraldine McCaughrean's "official sequel" Peter Pan in Scarlet (2006), among others.