Engagements with Children’s and Young Adult Literature offers an accessible guide to studying Children’s and Young Adult (CYA) literature, teaching readers how to read critically. This book introduces this dynamic field encompassing diverse genres, audiences, and interpretations. Lydia Kokkola and Sara Van den Bossche examine its historical, cultural, and ideological dimensions while addressing adult perspectives and the ambivalence of child agency. Tools for critical analysis, genre-specific insights, and emerging research trends enhance readers’ engagement with CYA literature and its broader implications.
The book approaches CYA literature from various complementary angles:
Historical: the influence of religious and philosophical convictions on its development; Thematic: commonly-occurring genres and types of CYA literature, such as realism versus speculative fiction; Narratological: plot, time, tension, character, and setting; Visual: the main principles for 'reading' images in picturebooks, graphic novels, and comics; Ideological: power dynamics and common constructions of childhood; Social: questions of identity politics related to race, gender, and orientation, and offers tools to read critically.
Engagements with Children’s and Young Adult Literature brings together established theories and new perspectives on CYA literature, combining engagement with theory with hands-on analytical, interpretive, and methodological tools for budding scholars of CYA literature. Exploring a diverse range of writing, this dynamic introduction is an invaluable resource for students and scholars of this vibrant field.
By:
Lydia Kokkola,
Sara Van den Bossche
Imprint: Routledge
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 234mm,
Width: 156mm,
Weight: 380g
ISBN: 9781032581996
ISBN 10: 1032581999
Series: Routledge Engagements with Literature
Pages: 194
Publication Date: 10 July 2025
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Primary
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
1. Introducing CYA Literature; 2. Historical Contexts of CYA Literature; 3. Genres within CYA Literature; 4. Narratological Approaches to CYA Literature; 5. Visual Approaches to CYA Literature: Illustration, Picturebooks and Graphic Narratives; 6. Ideological Approaches to CYA Literature; 7. Social Issues in and Social Approaches to CYA Literature; 8. Comparative Approaches: Adaptation, Convergence and Translation; 9. Further Directions: Three Road Maps; Glossary; Works Cited; Index
Lydia Kokkola is a Lecturer in the Department of English at the University of Oulu, Finland. She has worked on fiction portraying the Holocaust, sexuality in YA fiction, literature set in Sápmi (‘Lapland’) and a range of projects related to reading in a second language. Her current interests focus on plant sentience in CYA literature. Sara Van den Bossche is Assistant Professor of Youth Cultures at Tilburg University, the Netherlands. Her main interests are queer, feminist, ethnic-cultural, and cognitive criticism, canonisation, and adaptation. She has contributed chapters to The Routledge Companion to Children’s Literature and Culture (2023) and The Oxford Handbook of Young Adult Literature (2011).
