There is a new "genre" of literature that is aimed explicitly at adults and children, or sometimes simply at adults, which follow the formula of the picture book: the inclusion of a simple text accompanying provocative images, and sometimes images alone. On the surface they may seem best suited for the "children's section" of a…

Students in the English Language Arts classroom have access to more author commentary than ever. While following authors on social media may deepen students' engagement with their assigned reading, it also threatens to subdue students' own interpretations of the authors' texts. This essay explains how educators can introduce basic aspects of…

One of the particularly challenging aspects of children's literature lies in its ethics. The intended audience of children's literature is often perceived to be morally malleable, and particularly vulnerable to narrative strategies. This why it is of high importance to consider the moral contents which children's narratives attempt to communicate…

This article will focus on sociolinguistic aspects in Terry Pratchett's "The Wee Free Men." In particular we will deal with the interplay of standard and non-standard British English by which the writer highlights cultural stereotypes as well as narrative ones; creating a children's tale with a distinctively adult-like character set.…

The use of literary criticism has served to provide different lenses to analyze, evaluate, and interpret the content and context of the written text in all its forms and varieties, especially in children's and young adult (YA) literature. This study was aimed at analyzing the way in which "Feminist Criticism" may be applied to young…

This paper considers the issue of child agency in Mildred D. Taylor's 1976 novel "Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry" using a critical corpus linguistics framework based on Halliday's systemic functional linguistics. The novel has long received praise for its portrayal of child agency in a hostile racist society as well as its depiction of a…

This article compares the models of subjectivity and identity in William Steig's 1990 picture book "Shrek!" and in DreamWorks' "Shrek" films. Steig presented his ogre hero as a model of the crises of subjectivity all children must face, and then reassured readers by showing how even a hideous figure such as…

The depictions of cruel witches in Roald Dahl's novel "The Witches" echo the cruel, abusive measures taken by adults in the historical treatment of children. The concept of child-hatred, described by Lloyd Demause and other critics, is an effective lens through which to view the hyperbolized hatred of children described in "The…

In this article, the author describes several innovative activities for engaging students in studies of literary characters: voting on superlatives for characters, creating characters' Facebook profiles, and composing creative dialogs in which characters from different works meet each other. The author points out that it is this self-knowledge…

Viewing Tolstoy's works from psychological and intellectual perspectives demonstrates his approach to children's literacy and especially the development of reasoning, which he presents in his writing for children and the stories he includes in his "New ABC" book (1875a) and four "Readers" (1875b). This article…

This article looks at how four British-based poets born in the Caribbean exploit the rich language repertoire available to them in their work for children and young people. Following initial consideration of questions of definition and terminology, poetry collections by James Berry, John Agard, Grace Nichols and Valerie Bloom are discussed, with a…

"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…

This article examines three novels which use stories of elves--especially the ballad "Tam Lin"--as pre-texts, and contemplates how they explore the issue of Otherness. The three novels are "The Sterkarm Handshake" by Susan Price, "Cold Tom" by Sally Prue, and "Fire and Hemlock" by Diana Wynne Jones. Although the novels seem to be about elves as…

What significance does writing have for the young writer characters in a set of children's books? Twenty-five intermediate novels featuring characters who write were studied, using content analysis, to find out. The researchers present their findings by describing the characters and why they write. Reasons for writing range from exposing injustice…

Examines the structural patterns of literature suggested by Steven Spielberg's film, "E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial," and how these patterns are reflected in children's stories. (HOD)