'How did Long John Silver Lose His Leg?' is a diverting tour through some of the best-loved classics of children's literature, addressing many of the unanswered questions that inspire intense speculation when the books are laid down. Could Bobbie's train really have stopped in time ('The Railway Children')? Did Beatrix Potter have the 'flu in 1909, and did this lead to a certain darkness in her work ('The Tale of Mr Tod')? Would the 'rugby football' played by Tom Brown be recognised by sportsmen today ('Tom Brown's Schooldays')? The authors speculate entertainingly and informatively on the anomalies and unexplained phenomena found in children's literature and, having established the cultural importance of children's books in the modern age, also consider the more serious issues raised by the genre. Why are we so defensive of the idyllic worlds presented in children's books? Why have some of our best-loved authors been outed as neglectful parents to their own children? Should we ever separate the book from its creator and appreciate the works of writers convicted of crimes against children?A treat for any enthusiast of children's literature, two of the most distinguished writers on the subject provide rich detail, witty explication, and serious food for thought. Dennis Butts has taught Children's Literature at Reading University and is a former Chairman of The Children's Books History Society. He is co-editor of 'From the Dairyman's Daughter to Worrals of the WAAF' (The Lutterworth Press, 2006). Peter Hunt is Professor Emeritus at the School of English, Cardiff University, Visiting Professor at Newcastle University, and Visiting Professor at the Universita Ca' Foscari, Venice. In 2003 he was awarded the Brothers Grimm Award for services to children's literature, and in 1998 the Distinguished Scholarship Award, International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts. 'This is a book that wears its learning lightly but offers much in the way of cultural insight and some serious reflections on the condition and future of the children's book in a digital age.' Professor Kimberley Reynolds, School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics, Newcastle University. 'An imaginative and clever book that showcases some of children's literature's most beloved classics and the mysteries and puzzles they contain . . . a work certain to delight and inform children's book lovers of every age.' Professor Lynne Vallone, Department of Childhood Studies, Rutgers University.

The fairy tale has become one of the dominant cultural forms and genres internationally, thanks in large part to its many manifestations on screen. Yet the history and relevance of the fairy-tale film have largely been neglected. In this follow-up to Jack Zipes's award-winning book The Enchanted Screen (2011), Fairy-Tale Films Beyond Disney offers the first book-length multinational, multidisciplinary exploration of fairy-tale cinema. Bringing together twenty-three of the world's top fairy-tale scholars to analyze the enormous scope of these films, Zipes and colleagues Pauline Greenhill and Kendra Magnus-Johnston present perspectives on film from every part of the globe, from Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away, to Jan Svankmajer's Alice, to the transnational adaptations of 1001 Nights and Hans Christian Andersen. Contributors explore filmic traditions in each area not only from their different cultural backgrounds, but from a range of academic fields, including criminal justice studies, education, film studies, folkloristics, gender studies, and literary studies. Fairy-Tale Films Beyond Disney offers readers an opportunity to explore the intersections, disparities, historical and national contexts of its subject, and to further appreciate what has become an undeniably global phenomenon.

Originally published in 1991. Focusing on 'boys' own' literature, this book examines the reasons why such a distinct type of combative masculinity developed during the heyday of the British Empire. This book reveals the motives that produced this obsessive focus on boyhood. In Victorian Britain many kinds of writing, from the popular juvenile weeklies to parliamentary reports, celebrated boys of all classes as the heroes of their day. Fighting fit, morally upright, and proudly patriotic - these adventurous young men were set forth on imperial missions, civilizing a savage world. Such noble heroes included the strapping lads who brought an end to cannibalism on Ballantyne's "Coral Island" who came into their own in the highly respectable "Boys' Own Paper", and who eventually grew up into the men of Haggard's romances, advancing into the Dark Continent. The author here demonstrates why these young heroes have enjoyed a lasting appeal to readers of children's classics by Stevenson, Kipling and Henty, among many others. He shows why the political intent of many of these stories has been obscured by traditional literary criticism, a form of criticism itself moulded by ideals of empire and 'Englishness'. Throughout, imperial boyhood is related to wide-ranging debates about culture, literacy, realism and romance. This is a book of interest to students of literature, social history and education.

Originally published in 1981. Many of the classics of children's literature were produced in the Victorian period. But Alice in Wonderland and The King of the Golden River were not the books offered to the majority of children of the time. When writing for children began to be taken seriously, it was not as an art, but as an instrument of moral suasion, practical instruction, Christian propaganda or social control. This book describes and evaluates this body of literature. It places the books in the economic and social contexts of their writing and publication, and considers many of the most prolific writers in detail. It deals with the stories intended to teach the newly-literate poor their social and religious lessons: sensational romances, tales of adventure and military glory, through which the boys were taught the value of self-help and inspired with the ideals of empire; and domestic novels, intended to offer girls a model for the expression of heroism and aspiration within the restricted Victorian woman's world.

Originally published in 1996. A detailed analysis of the art of children's literature covering world literature for children, children's literature as a canonical art form, the history of children's literature from a semiotic perspective, and epic, polyphony, chronotope, intertextuality, and metafiction in children's literature.

Originally published in 1985. This is a fascinating account of the life cycle of a minor literary genre, the boys' school story. It discusses early nineteenth-century precursors of the school story - didactic works with such revealing titles as The Parents' Assistant - and goes on to examine in detail the two major examples of the genre - Hughes's Tom Brown's School Days and Farrar's Eric. The slow development of the genre during the 1860s and 1870s is traced, and its institutionalisation by Talbot Baines Reed in, for example, The Fifth Form at St Dominic's, is described. Many similar works were subsequently published for adults and adolescents, and the author shows how they differ from the originals in being critical in tone and written to a formula in plot and style. This development is discussed in relation to the changing social structure of Britain up to 1945, by which time to life of the genre was almost ended.

Translating Children's Literature is an exploration of the many developmental and linguistic issues related to writing and translating for children, an audience that spans a period of enormous intellectual progress and affective change from birth to adolescence. Lathey looks at a broad range of children's literature, from prose fiction to poetry and picture books. Each of the seven chapters addresses a different aspect of translation for children, covering: * Narrative style and the challenges of translating the child's voice; * The translation of cultural markers for young readers; * Translation of the modern picture book; * Dialogue, dialect and street language in modern children's literature; * Read-aloud qualities, wordplay, onomatopoeia and the translation of children's poetry; * Retranslation, retelling and reworking; * The role of translation for children within the global publishing and translation industries. This is the first practical guide to address all aspects of translating children's literature, featuring extracts from commentaries and interviews with published translators of children's literature, as well as examples and case studies across a range of languages and texts. Each chapter includes a set of questions and exercises for students. Translating Children's Literature is essential reading for professional translators, researchers and students on courses in translation studies or children's literature.

This volume visits death in children's literature from around the world, making a substantial contribution to the dialogue between the expanding fields of Childhood Studies, Children's Literature, and Death Studies. Considering both textual and pictorial representations of death, contributors focus on the topic of death in children's literature as a physical reality, a philosophical concept, a psychologically challenging adjustment, and/or a social construct. Essays covering literature from the US, Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Canada, the UK, Sweden, Germany, Poland, Bulgaria, Brazil, Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union, India, and Iran display a diverse range of theoretical and cultural perspectives. Carefully organized sections interrogate how classic texts have been adapted for the twenty-first century, how death has been politicized, ritualized, or metaphorized, and visual strategies for representing death, and how death has been represented within the context of play. Asking how different cultures present the concept of death to children, this volume is the first to bring together a global range of perspective on death in children's literature and will be a valuable contribution to an array of disciplines.

Focuses on illustration and contains essays on why and how books were chosen, a list of all books in the three volumes, and predictions for future classics. Picture books covered include titles by Edward Ardizzone, L. Leslie Brooke, Virginia Lee Burton, Randolph Caldecott, Walter Crane, Wanda GD'ag, Kate Greenaway, Ezra Jack Keats, Robert Lawson, Leo Lionni, Robert McCloskey, Beatrix Potter, McCloskey Rackham, Maurice Sendak, and Dr. Seuss.

All children can benefit from building new friendships and repairing old ones. For the librarian, teacher, or parent who wishes to foster compassionate multicultural relationships between and among children, this manual offers help. It includes an annotated bibliography of children's books that contain characters of different cultural heritages who display friendship with others. For each book listed, Roberts highlights the heritage of the book's main character(s), the age levels for which it is intended, and includes detailed plans, materials to use, objectives, activities, and discussion questions. The stories and accompanying activities will help children build associations with others, understand the value of support groups, and recognize the value of friendships. Sample lessons from selected books show educators and parents how such literature can be used to help children develop friendship skills. Children's books are categorized by family friendships, neighborhood and community friendships, and world friendships. Contains a broad sampling of quality picture books for children ages 5-8, as well as books without pictures for children ages 9-14.

Examining young adult vampire fiction and how it fits in both the contemporary and classic vampire canon, the book's analysis begins with a primer on vampire scholarship, including a brief deconstruction of ten seminal vampire representations-five literary, five cinematic-and their impact on young adult vampire novels; the evolution of vampires from scary Gothic enemies into postmodern sexualized heroes is traced throughout the book; and the influence of Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles. Subsequent chapters examine current young adult vampires novels from such popular horror authors as Amelia Atwater-Rhodes, Christopher Pike, R. L. Stine, Darren Shan, and L. J. Smith, and are divided into three categories based on narrative structure: the process of turning into a vampire, humans and vampires trying to find their way in life, and romantic relationships with a vampire partner. Analysis also addresses vampire conventions (the traditions that exist in each vampire universe), vampires and sexuality, and good and reluctant vampires. The human characters who coexist with vampires in these novels receive the same treatment. Additionally, issues of gender, age, and affectional orientation of human and vampire characters are discussed, as are postmodern constructions of good and evil. Not Your Mother's Vampire contains an exploration of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a television phenomenon, which has sparked an entirely new academic field: Buffy Studies. The vampire characters on Buffy and parallel series, Angel, are explored as are a few main humans (slayers and witches alike). The final chapter of the book is an annotated bibliography of seminal vampire scholarship. As the only in-depth examination of young adult vampire novels in existence, this book is essential for students and scholars of the literature.

Since 1922, the Newbery Medal of Honor has been awarded to distinguished works of literature for children. Although African and African American characters appeared in children's books well before the establishment of the Newbery award, such depictions were limited, with characters often only appearing as slaves or servants. However, over the last several decades, there has been much progress, and Black characters have played a much more integral role in many highly regarded novels. In African and African American Images in Newbery Award Winning Titles, Binnie Tate Wilkin provides a historical and contextual examination of books with such depictions that have been acknowledged by the nation's most prestigious award for children's literature. Wilkin explores the depictions of African and African American characters in these novels and illuminates the progressive quality of such representations. Wilkin looks closely at such elements as aesthetic descriptions, subservient characterizations, the relationships between characters, and specific language usage to investigate how these images have progressed toward increasingly positive depictions. She also notes, when applicable, the significance of the lack of any African or African American images. This book is an essential resource for those interested in African American studies, children's literature, and the relationship between the two.

Harry Potter's global triumph is without precedent. Economically it is the most successful children's book ever published and at the same time it has become the most widely discussed text for young adults. Why is this so? What does the text offer to its readers? Muggles, Monsters and Magicians deals with these issues and answers these questions. On the basis of a carefully conducted text-based analysis of the whole series it argues that, from a purely literary point of view, Pottermania is not entirely comprehensible. It identifies Rowling's narrative techniques, explains the world view underlying this series and links it to the literary genres of children's and fantastic literature.

Colonial India in Children's Literature is the first book-length study to explore the intersections of children's literature and defining historical moments in colonial India. Engaging with important theoretical and critical literature that deals with colonialism, hegemony, and marginalization in children's literature, Goswami proposes that British, Anglo-Indian, and Bengali children's literature respond to five key historical events: the missionary debates preceding the Charter Act of 1813, the defeat of Tipu Sultan, the Mutiny of 1857, the birth of Indian nationalism, and the Swadeshi movement resulting from the Partition of Bengal in 1905. Through a study of works by Mary Sherwood (1775-1851), Barbara Hofland (1770-1844), Sara Jeanette Duncan (1861-1922), Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), Upendrakishore Ray (1863-1915), and Sukumar Ray (1887-1923), Goswami examines how children's literature negotiates and represents these momentous historical forces that unsettled Britain's imperial ambitions in India. Goswami argues that nineteenth-century British and Anglo-Indian children's texts reflect two distinct moods in Britain's colonial enterprise in India. Sherwood and Hofland (writing before 1857) use the tropes of conversion and captivity as a means of awakening children to the dangers of India, whereas Duncan and Kipling shift the emphasis to martial prowess, adaptability, and empirical knowledge as defining qualities in British and Anglo-Indian children. Furthermore, Goswami's analysis of early nineteenth-century children's texts written by women authors redresses the preoccupation with male authors and boys' adventure stories that have largely informed discussions of juvenility in the context of colonial India. This groundbreaking book also seeks to open up the canon by examining early twentieth-century Bengali children's texts that not only draw literary inspiration from nineteenth-century British children's literature, but whose themes are equally shaped by empire.

This book is the first to offer a justice-focused cognitive reading of modern YA speculative fiction in its narrative and filmic forms. It links the expansion of YA speculative fiction in the 20th century with the emergence of human and civil rights movements, with the communitarian revolution in conceptualizations of justice, and with spectacular advances in cognitive sciences as applied to the examination of narrative fiction. Oziewicz argues that complex ideas such as justice are processed by the human mind as cognitive scripts; that scripts, when narrated, take the form of multiply indexable stories; and that YA speculative fiction is currently the largest conceptual testing ground in the forging of justice consciousness for the 21st century world. Drawing on recent research in the cognitive and evolutionary sciences, Oziewicz explains how poetic, retributive, restorative, environmental, social, and global types of justice have been represented in narrative fiction, from 19th century folk and fairy tales through 21st century fantasy, dystopia, and science fiction. Suggesting that the appeal of these and other nonmimetic genres is largely predicated on the dream of justice, Oziewicz theorizes new justice scripts as conceptual tools essential to help humanity survive the qualitative leap toward an environmentally conscious, culturally diversified global world. This book is an important contribution to studies of children's and YA speculative fiction, adding a new perspective to discussions about the educational as well as social potential of nonmimetic genres. It demonstrates that the justice imperative is very much alive in YA speculative fiction, creating new visions of justice relevant to contemporary challenges.

Taking a close look at the forces that affect English education in schools-at the ways literature, cognitive science, the privileging of the STEM disciplines, and current educational policies are connected-this timely book counters with a strong argument for the importance of continuing to teach literature in middle and secondary classrooms. The case is made through critical examination of the ongoing "culture wars" between the humanities and the sciences, recent research in cognitive literary studies demonstrating the power of narrative reading, and an analysis of educational trends that have marginalized literature teaching in the U.S., including standards-based and scripted curricula. The book is distinctive in presenting both a synthesis of arguments for literary study in the middle and high school and sample lesson plans from practicing teachers exemplifying how literature can positively influence adolescents' intellectual, emotional, and social selves.

The Robber with the Witch's Head presents almost fifty new stories about demons and clever maidens and princes. Bursting with life, this is a storyteller's dream, full of adventure and magic, translated by Jack Zipes.

This study of children's literature as knowledge, culture, and social foundation bridges the gap between science and literature and examines the interconnectedness of fiction and reality as a two-way road. The book investigates how the civilized narrative orders experience by means of segregation, domestication, breeding, and extermination, arguing instead that the stories and narratives of wilderness project chaos and infinite possibilities for experiencing the world through a diverse community of life. AbdelRahim engages these narratives in a dialogue with each other and traces their expression in the various disciplines and books written for both children and adults, analyzing the manifestation of fictional narratives in real life. This is both an inter- and multi-disciplinary endeavor that is reflected in the combination of research methods drawn from anthropology and literary studies as well as in the tracing of the narratives of order and chaos, or civilization and wilderness, in children's literature and our world. Chapters compare and contrast fictional children's books that offer different real-world socio-economic paradigms, such as A.A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh projecting a civilized monarcho-capitalist world, Nikolai Nosov's trilogy on The Adventures of Dunno and Friends presenting the challenges and feats of an anarcho-socialist society in evolution from primitivism towards technology, and Tove Jansson's Moominbooks depicting the harmony of anarchy, chaos, and wildness. AbdelRahim examines the construction, transmission, and acquisition of knowledge in children s literature by visiting the very nature of literature, culture, and language and the civilized structures that domesticate the world. She brings radically new perspectives to the knowledge, culture, and construction of human beings, making an invaluable contribution to a wide range of disciplines and for those engaged in revolutionizing contemporary debates on the nature of knowledge, human identity, and the world."

Neil Gaiman (b. 1960) reigns as one of the most critically decorated and popular authors of the last fifty years. Perhaps best known as the writer of the Harvey, Eisner, and World Fantasy Award-winning series The Sandman, Gaiman quickly became equally renowned in literary circles for Neverwhere, Coraline, and the award-winning American Gods, as well as the Newbery and Carnegie Medal-winning The Graveyard Book. For adults, children, comics readers, and viewers of the BBC's Doctor Who, Gaiman's writing has crossed the borders of virtually all media, making him a celebrity around the world. Despite Gaiman's incredible contributions to comics, his work remains underrepresented in sustained fashion in comics studies. In this book, the thirteen essays and two interviews with Gaiman and his frequent collaborator, artist P. Craig Russell, examine the work of Gaiman and his many illustrators. The essays discuss Gaiman's oeuvre regarding the qualities that make his work unique in his eschewing of typical categories, his proclamations to "make good art," and his own constant efforts to do so however the genres and audiences may slip into one another. The Artistry of Neil Gaiman forms a complicated picture of a man who has always seemed fully assembled virtually from the start of his career, but only came to feel comfortable in his own voice far later in life.

Focusing on questions of space and locale in children's literature, this collection explores how metaphorical and physical space can create landscapes of power, knowledge, and identity in texts from the early nineteenth century to the present. The collection is comprised of four sections that take up the space between children and adults, the representation of 'real world' places, fantasy travel and locales, and the physical space of the children's book-as-object. In their essays, the contributors analyze works from a range of sources and traditions by authors such as Sylvia Plath, Maria Edgeworth, Gloria Anzaldua, Jenny Robson, C.S. Lewis, Elizabeth Knox, and Claude Ponti. While maintaining a focus on how location and spatiality aid in defining the child's relationship to the world, the essays also address themes of borders, displacement, diaspora, exile, fantasy, gender, history, home-leaving and homecoming, hybridity, mapping, and metatextuality. With an epilogue by Philip Pullman in which he discusses his own relationship to image and locale, this collection is also a valuable resource for understanding the work of this celebrated author of children's literature.

Since the "Automatic Binding Bricks" that LEGO produced in 1949, and the LEGO "System of Play" that began with the release of Town Plan No. 1 (1955), LEGO bricks have gone on to become a global phenomenon, and the favorite building toy of children, as well as many an AFOL (Adult Fan of LEGO). LEGO has also become a medium into which a wide number of media franchises, including "Star Wars," "Harry Potter," "Pirates of the Caribbean," "Batman," "Superman," "Lord of the Rings," and others, have adapted their characters, vehicles, props, and settings. The LEGO Group itself has become a multimedia empire, including LEGO books, movies, television shows, video games, board games, comic books, theme parks, magazines, and even MMORPGs.

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LEGO Studies: Examining the Building Blocks of a Transmedial Phenomenon "is the first collection to examine LEGO as both a medium into which other franchises can be adapted and a transmedial franchise of its own. Although each essay looks at a particular aspect of the LEGO phenomenon, topics such as adaptation, representation, paratexts, franchises, and interactivity intersect throughout these essays, proposing that the study of LEGO as a medium and a media empire is a rich vein barely touched upon in Media Studies.

Since the "Automatic Binding Bricks" that LEGO produced in 1949, and the LEGO "System of Play" that began with the release of Town Plan No. 1 (1955), LEGO bricks have gone on to become a global phenomenon, and the favorite building toy of children, as well as many an AFOL (Adult Fan of LEGO). LEGO has also become a medium into which a wide number of media franchises, including "Star Wars," "Harry Potter," "Pirates of the Caribbean," "Batman," "Superman," "Lord of the Rings," and others, have adapted their characters, vehicles, props, and settings. The LEGO Group itself has become a multimedia empire, including LEGO books, movies, television shows, video games, board games, comic books, theme parks, magazines, and even MMORPGs.

"

LEGO Studies: Examining the Building Blocks of a Transmedial Phenomenon "is the first collection to examine LEGO as both a medium into which other franchises can be adapted and a transmedial franchise of its own. Although each essay looks at a particular aspect of the LEGO phenomenon, topics such as adaptation, representation, paratexts, franchises, and interactivity intersect throughout these essays, proposing that the study of LEGO as a medium and a media empire is a rich vein barely touched upon in Media Studies.

In this new book, Noga Applebaum surveys science fiction novels published for children and young adults from 1980 to the present, exposing the anti-technological bias existing within a genre often associated with the celebration of technology. Applebaum argues that perceptions of technology as a corrupting force, particularly in relation to its use by young people, are a manifestation of the enduring allure of the myth of childhood innocence and result in young-adult fiction that endorses a technophobic agenda. This agenda is a form of resistance to the changing face of childhood and technology's contribution to this change. Further, Applebaum contends that technophobic literature disempowers its young readers by implying that the technologies of the future are inherently dangerous, while it neglects to acknowledge children's complex, yet pleasurable, interactions with technology today. The study looks at works by well-known authors including M.T. Anderson, Monica Hughes, Lois Lowry, Garth Nix, and Philip Reeve, and explores topics such as ecology, cloning, the impact of technology on narrative structure, and the adult-child hierarchy. While focusing on the popular genre of science fiction as a useful case study, Applebaum demonstrates that negative attitudes toward technology exist within children's literature in general, making the book of considerable interest to scholars of both science fiction and children's literature.

Concurrent with increasing scholarly attention toward national children's literatures, Contemporary English-language Indian Children's Literature explores an emerging body of work that has thus far garnered little serious critical attention. Superle critically examines the ways Indian children's writers have represented childhood in relation to the Indian nation, Indian cultural identity, and Indian girlhood. From a framework of postcolonial and feminist theories, children's novels published between 1988 and 2008 in India are compared with those from the United Kingdom and North America from the same period, considering the differing ideologies and the current textual constructions of childhood at play in each. Broadly, Superle contends that over the past twenty years an aspirational view of childhood has developed in this literature-a view that positions children as powerful participants in the project of enabling positive social transformation. Her main argument, formed after recognizing several overarching thematic and structural patterns in more than one hundred texts, is that the novels comprise an aspirational literature with a transformative agenda: they imagine apparently empowered child characters who perform in diverse ways in the process of successfully creating and shaping the ideal Indian nation, their own well-adjusted bicultural identities in the diaspora, and/or their own empowered girlhoods. Michelle Superle is a Professor in the department of Communications at Okanagan College. She has taught children's literature, composition, and creative writing courses at various Canadian universities and has published articles in Papers and IRCL.

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.