Jean Webb

Introducing Children's Literature from romanticism to postmodernism

Acknowledgements Preface and Introduction Section One: Romanticism: 1. Imagining the Child 2. The King of the Golden River 3. Closing the garret door: a feminist reading of Little Women Section Two: Nineteenth-Century Literature: 4. Victorianism, Empire and the Paternal Voice 5. Reality and Enigma in The Water-Babies 6. Alice as Subject in the Logic of Wonderland Section Three: The Fin de Siecle 7. Testing Boundaries 8. The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz: Pleasure without Nightmares 9. Romanticism vs Empire in The Secret Garden Section Four: Modernism 10. New Voices, New Threats 11. Connecting with Mary Poppins 12. Spinning the Word: Charlottes Web 13. Real or Story?: The Borrowers Section Five: Postmodernism: 14. Playful Subversion 15. Clockwork, A Fairy tale for a postmodern time 16. a postmodern reflection of the genre of fairy tale: The Stinky Cheese Man and other Fairly Stupid Tales Bibliography

Developing Environmental Agency and Engagement Through Young People’s Fiction.

This article explores the extent to which stories for young people encourage environmental engagement and a sense of agency. Our discussion is informed by the work of Paul Ricoeur (on hermeneutics and narrative), John Dewey (on primacy of experience) and John Macmurray (on personal agency in society). We understand fiction reading about place as hermeneutical, that is, interpreting understanding by combining what is read with what is experienced. We investigate this view through examples of four children’s writers: Ernest Thompson Seton, Kenneth Grahame, Michelle Paver and Philip Pullman. We draw attention to notions of critical dialogue and active democratic citizenship. With a focus on the educational potential of this material for environmental discussions that lead to deeper understandings of place and environment, we examine whether the examples consistently encourage the belief that young people can become agents for change. We also consider whether the concept of heroic resister might encourage young people to overcome peer pressure and peer cultures that marginalize environmental activism. We conclude by recommending the focused discussion of fiction to promote environmental learning; and for writers to engage more with themes of environmental responsibility and agency.

Genre and Convention.

In common with other academic disciplines which endeavour to extend the frontiers of knowledge to bring greater understanding, children’s literature is a dynamic, questioning, and self-reflexive field of study. Much deliberation, debate, wordage, and intellectual soul-searching has gone into defining, interrogating, and establishing children’s literature as an academic discipline, and the process continues. As discussed by colleagues in this book, the establishment of children’s literature as an academic discipline has not been an easy task. However, the very fact that a text such as this exists is evidence of the success, security, and dynamism of the field. Two areas central to this discussion of genre and convention underpin the establishment of children’s literature as an academic field of study, namely, questions pertaining to the canon and the notion of a classic children’s book. Such parameters lead to the consideration of genre and convention in children’s literature. From a pragmatic viewpoint one could rephrase these discussions as questions asked by someone formulating a programme in children’s literature: “Which books should I choose?” and having selected them, “What should I teach?” and furthermore, “Why?” Reduction to the pragmatic can oversimplify matters somewhat, since those “innocent” questions mask a host of cultural, social, and political complexities.

'Reading as Protection and Enlightenment in Marcus Zusak’s The Book Thief'

In 2009 the Arts Council England commissioned a report entitled ‘The future of reading: A public value project’ as part of their intention ‘to engage members of the public in a debate about the role and value of reading’ . One of the principal questions pursued was: ‘How do people understand their experience of reading, and the role it plays in their lives?’ Marcus Zusak’s The Book Thief pursues such a question through the experiences of the central character Liesel, a German child caught up in the pre-war period in Germany and the associated Nazi activity. Leisure reading for the respondents to the Arts Council project was principally seen as an escape from the activities of normal life. For Liesel the need to learn to read is far more than the means to pleasurable escapism, it is a driving force in her dislocated and disturbed life as she has already suffered tragedy in the events leading to her being placed with foster parents in Munich. She is taught to read by her foster father. This shared night-time engagement is more than the process of learning a skill, it acts as a form of protection and healing from the nightmare of the traumas she has suffered which otherwise torment her sleeping hours. Enlightenment comes for Liesel from the power of the written word which is pursued by Zusak in differing ways through this complex narrative. This paper discusses the power of reading as protection and enlightenment in Marcus Zusak’s The Book Thief.

Food: Changing Approaches to Food in the Construction of Childhood in Western Culture

Food: changing approaches to food in the construction of childhood in ‘western culture’ discusses how food operates in books for children as an integral part of the construction of childhood, and is used by authors in different ways and time periods from the nineteenth century to contemporary times to re-imagine and comment upon childhood. The areas considered are under the following headings: Food, Morality and the Nation, Greedy Appetites, In A Manner Of Eating, Class and Food, Changing Approaches To Obesity and finally Recipes For Change. The concluding section on Recipes For Change discusses the ways that attention to the question of food and childhood has moved into a more applied approach by raising the awareness of children to food in an attempt to improve their dietary health.