Focusing on significant and cutting-edge preoccupations within children’s literature scholarship, The Routledge Companion to Children’s Literature and Culture presents a comprehensive overview of print, digital, and electronic texts for children aged zero to thirteen as forms of world literature participating in a panoply of identity formations.
Offering five distinct sections, this volume:
Familiarizes students and beginning scholars with key concepts and methodological resources guiding contemporary inquiry into children’s literature Describes the major media formats and genres for texts expressly addressing children Considers the production, distribution, and valuing of children’s books from an assortment of historical and contemporary perspectives, highlighting context as a driver of content Maps how children’s texts have historically presumed and prescribed certain identities on the part of their readers, sometimes addressing readers who share some part of the author’s identity, sometimes seeking to educate the reader about a presumed “other,” and in recent decades increasingly foregrounding identities once lacking visibility and voice Explores the historical evolutions and trans-regional contacts and (inter)connections in the long process of the formation of global children’s literature, highlighting issues such as retranslation, transnationalism, transculturality, and new digital formats for considering cultural crossings and renegotiations in the production of children’s literature
Methodically presented and contextualized, this volume is an engaging introduction to this expanding and multifaceted field.
Introduction PART I Concepts and tools Section introduction 1 Theory Karín Lesnik-Oberstein 2 Poetics and Pedagogy Karen Coats 3 Ethics and Historical Perspectives Amanda K. Allen 4 Children’s Literary Geography Björn Sundmark and Chrysogonus Siddha Malilang 5 The Monster at the End of This Book: Posthumanism and New Materialism in the Scholarship of Children’s Literature Megan L. Musgrave 6 Digital Humanities and Children’s Literature Deanna Stover 7 Research with Young Readers: Participatory Approaches in Children’s Literature Studies Justyna Deszcz-Tryhubczak PART II Media and genres Section introduction 8 Picturebooks Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer 9 Books for Beginners Annette Wannamaker and Jennifer Miskec 10 Magazines Kristine Moruzi 11 Comics for Children Across Cultures Joseph Michael Sommers 12 Children’s Fiction: The Possibilities of Reality and Imagination Deborah Stevenson 13 Nonfiction Giorgia Grilli 14 Children’s Poetry Michael Joseph 15 Theatre and Drama: Global Perspectives Manon van de Water 16 Film Christine Lötscher 17 Television Debbie Olson 18 Playful Possibilities: The Rights of the Reader in a Digital Age Angela Colvert PART III Identities Section introduction 19 Age Vanessa Joosen 20 Gender Mia Österlund and Åsa Warnqvist 21 Nation and Citizenship Sara Van den Bossche 22 Religion and Children’s Literature Gabriele von Glasenapp 23 Whatever Common People Do: Social Class in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century British Children’s Fiction Kimberley Reynolds and Jane Rosen 24 Race and Ethnicity in Children’s Literature Trevor Boffone and Cristina Herrera 25 LGBTQ+ Discourses in Eastern and Central European Children’s Literature Mateusz Świetlicki 26 Disability and Children’s Literature Kimura Toshio and Yoshida Junko PART IV Border crossings Section introduction 27 Translation Emer O’Sullivan 28 Retranslation Virginie Douglas 29 Adaptation Anja Müller 30 Fairy Tales and Circulation: A Case Study in Poland Weronika Kostecka 31 Children’s Literature and Transnationalism Clare Bradford, Kristine Moruzi, and Michelle J. Smith 32 Transcultural Comparison as Method: Korean and Hebrew Children’s Poetry in the Early Twentieth Century Dafna Zur and Rachel Feldman 33 Marketing and Franchising Naomi Hamer 34 Children’s Literature Websites and Fandom Sara K. Day and Carrie Sickmann PART V Institutions Section introduction 35 Book Publishing and the British Sphere of Influence in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries Courtney Weikle-Mills 36 Children’s Book Publishing in Europe: A Historical Approach Emily Bruce 37 Contemporary Asian Book Publishing Shih-Wen Sue Chen 38 From Canon-Making to Participatory Prizing: Children’s Book and Media Awards Ramona Caponegro and Kenneth B. Kidd 39 Children’s Literature in Schools Etti Gordon Ginzburg 40 Libraries Margaret Mackey 41 Book Clubs Julie Fette and Anne Morey 42 Promoting Children’s Reading Internationally Valerie Coghlan 43 Censorship and Shifting Contexts in Children’s Literature Andrew Zalot
Claudia Nelson is Professor Emerita of English at Texas A&M University, USA. Elisabeth Wesseling is Professor of Cultural Memory, Gender and Diversity and at Maastricht University, the Netherlands. Andrea Mei-Ying Wu is Director of the Chinese Language Center and Professor of Children’s Literature and Taiwanese Literature at National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan.
