"Monsters Under the Bed" is an essential text focussing on critical and contemporary issues surrounding writing for "early years" children. Containing a critically creative and a creatively critical investigation of the cult and culture of the child and childhood in fiction and non-fictional writing, it also contains a wealth of ideas and critical…

Discusses the demand for excellence in children's literature and the development of a strong and comprehensive criticism. Examines three categories of criticism for children's literature and lists several findings resulting from a survey of such criticism available today. (HTH)

The purpose of this study was to examine and evaluate the portrayal of death in selected fiction books for children. The sample consisted of 90 books which were listed by six authors discussing the appearance of the death theme in children's books. A method of content analysis was applied as the research design, and each book was analyzed on the…

Describes features of several kinds of research in library science, sociology, education, and literature that focus on children's literature. Examples of studies in these fields are summarized, and the subject of child abuse in children's books is used as an example of current research. (32 references) (MES)

Various aspects of 145 representative oral and written compositions of six- and seven-year-old new literates are discussed in this paper. The determination to label these compositions as "primitive fiction" was made primarily on the assumption that children's first attempts at fictive narrative take on the aspects of their cultural literary…

To honor the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Louise M. Rosenblatt's book "Literature as Exploration," this book offers 12 essays that demonstrate the extraordinary influence of Rosenblatt's work on the teaching of literature, on literary theory, and on educational research in all English-speaking countries. Further, it evinces…

This dissertation explored the extent and kind of sex-role stereotyping in popular, prestigious, and sex-role defining children's picture books printed between 1959 and 1972. The sample consisted of two categories of popular children's picture books, best-selling golden books and "New York Times" children's best-sellers, one category of Caldecott…

The fantastic tale is a genre of children's literature in which magic and reality are found side by side in a superficially plausible story with a definite historical setting. Motifs characteristic of the tale are living toys, strange children, modern witches, space and time displacements, "doors" to the wonderland, the mythical world itself, and…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 24 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) humorous children's literature and divergent thinking; (2) the development of children's ability to apprehend and distribute attention to important elements in…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 33 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) storytelling; (2) the short story; (3) metaphor and simile; (4) fairy tales; (5) American science fiction; (6) contemporary American fiction; (7) objective and…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 26 titles deal with a variety of topics including the following: (1) multicultural representation in children's books, (2) moral education through literature, (3) the effect of death awareness on the protagonists of selected…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 21 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) Victorian ideology and British children's literature from 1850 to 1914, (2) a comparison of passages from books for adults and for children, (3) the use and…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 25 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) the integrated short story collection as a genre; (2) lyric definition; (3) trope density in Newbery Award winning books and selected Children's Choices from…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 29 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) science fiction in elementary school science education; (2) the portrayal of black characters in children's literature; (3) UFOs and their correlates as a…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 32 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: literary criticism in nineteenth century United States; effects of sexist and nonsexist literature on children's attitudes; effects of silent reading and video…