Synopses & Reviews
Radical Children's Literature reappraises the place of children's literature in culture, showing it to be a creative space where writers and illustrators try out new ideas - about books, society, and the possibilities for narrative in an age of instant communication and multi-media. It looks at the stories young people are given about the world and themselves, and how these interact with changing childhoods and new technologies.
Review
Winner of the 2007 Book Award by the Children's Literature Association
"Covering a huge geographical and historical range, Reynolds examines both traditional and less traditional literary forms (visual media, computer games, fan fiction etc), effortlessly combining insightful close readings with an enviable theoretical acumen. This book is destined to become a classic in the field." --David Rudd, University of Bolton, UK
"[A] groundbreaking study...The wide range of texts discussed and the new insights offered into the interplay of children's literature with childhood and youth culture will make this book an indispensable study for children's literature scholars." --Claudia Sffner, Bookbird, A Journal of International Children's Literature
"Reynolds writes with persuasive authority and unsurpassed depth of knowledge both about the history of children's literature, and about the rich diversity of literature being produced for children today. Best of all is the invigorating new approach she brings to the subject: here, we discover how children's literature has been, and continues to be, at the vanguard of radical experimentation in art."--Rachel Falconer, University of Sheffield, UK
Synopsis
This book is designed to challenge the view that children's literature is innately conservative - that it lags behind writing for adults. By looking at a range of texts, past and present, it shows that children's literature is in fact a playground in which radical and innovative texts are devised. Developments in children's literature have not gone uncontested, particularly when a controversial children's book also wins a major literary prize. But to date there has been no focused examination of how far conventional boundaries have been breached in children's literature, or what it means that the boundaries between writing for adults and children are increasingly blurred. Neither has the cultural debt owed to children's literature as a source of innovation and assimilation of new ideas in writing, illustration and narrative experimentation been acknowledged. Radical Children's Literature begins this process by exploring how writing for children redirects the way in which genres, texts and new technologies interact creatively with childhood and youth culture.
Synopsis
This book reappraises the place of children's literature, showing it to be a creative space where writers and illustrators try out new ideas about books, society, and narratives in an age of instant communication and multi-media. It looks at the stories about the world and young people; the interaction with changing childhoods and new technologies.
Synopsis
This book challenges much of the received wisdom about children's literature, typified by Jacqueline Rose's claim in The Case of Peter Pan, or, The Impossibility of Children's Fiction that children's literature is innately conservative.
Synopsis
This book, now available in paperback, reappraises the place of children's literature, showing it to be a creative space where writers and illustrators try out new ideas about books, society, and narratives in an age of instant communication and multi-media.
About the Author
KIMBERLEY REYNOLDS is Professor of Children's Literature in the School of English at Newcastle University, UK, and President of the International Research Society for Children's Literature. Previously she founded and directed the National Centre for Research in Children's Literature at Roehampton University, UK. Her publications span historical, theoretical and contemporary aspects of the field.
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations * Acknowledgements * Author's Note * Breaking Bounds: The Transformative Energy of Children's Literature * Breaking the Frame: Picturebooks, Modernism and New Media * And None of it was Nonsense * Useful Idiots: Interactions between Youth Culture and Children's Literature * Self-harm, Silence and Survival: Despair and Trauma in Children's Literature * Baby, You're the Best: Sex and Sexuality in Contemporary JuvenileFiction * Frightening Fiction: TheTransformative Power of Fear * Back to the Future? New Forms and Formats in Juvenile Fiction * Conclusion: The Foundations of Future Fictions * Bibliography * Index List of Illustrations * Acknowledgements * Author's Note * Breaking Bounds: The Transformative Energy of Children's Literature * Breaking the Frame: Picturebooks, Modernism and New Media * And None of it was Nonsense * Useful Idiots: Interactions between Youth Culture and Children's Literature * Self-harm, Silence and Survival: Despair and Trauma in Children's Literature * Baby, You're the Best: Sex and Sexuality in Contemporary JuvenileFiction * Frightening Fiction: TheTransformative Power of Fear * Back to the Future? New Forms and Formats in Juvenile Fiction * Conclusion: The Foundations of Future Fictions * Bibliography * Index