Radical Children's Literature

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

This book reappraises the place of children's literature, showing it to be a creative space where writers and illustrators try out new ideas about books, society, and narratives in an age of instant communication and multi-media. It looks at the stories about the world and young people; the interaction with changing childhoods and new technologies.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• List of Illustrations (p. viii)
• Acknowledgements (p. ix)
• Author's Note (p. xi)
• 1 Breaking Bounds: The Transformative Energy of Children's Literature (p. 1)
• 2 Breaking the Frame: Picturebooks, Modernism, and New Media (p. 24)
• 3 And None of It Was Nonsense (p. 45)
• 4 Useful Idiots: Interactions Between Youth Culture and Children's Literature (p. 68)
• 5 Self-harm, Silence, and Survival: Despair and Trauma in Children's Literature (p. 88)
• 6 Baby, You're the Best: Sex and Sexuality in Contemporary Juvenile Fiction (p. 114)
• 7 Frightening Fiction: The Transformative Power of Fear (p. 131)
• 8 Back to the Future? New Forms and Formats in Juvenile Fiction (p. 155)
• Conclusion: The Foundations of Future Fictions (p. 180)
• Notes (p. 184)
• Bibliography (p. 193)
• Index (p. 208)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

Many view literature for children as conservative, lagging behind literature for adults in terms of innovation and technique. Reynolds (Newcastle Univ., UK) challenges that notion by asserting that children's literature has a transformative power that is often ignored. Building on Jacqueline Rose's The Case of Peter Pan, or, The Impossibility of Children's Fiction (1984) and Juliet Dusinberre's Alice to the Lighthouse: Children's Books and Radical Experiments in Art (CH, Apr'88), Reynolds offers a detailed analysis of children's texts that stretch the boundaries of genre, technology, and culture. She sees children's literature as a playground for writers, a space in which they feel free to transcend genre boundaries and invent new styles of writing. One of the strengths of this analysis is its examination of a wide variety of texts, including those written in languages other than English (e.g., French and Russian picture books). Another is its analysis of new media, including the influence of MUDs (Multi User Domains) and other storytelling technology for young people. Though this study is certainly not exhaustive, Reynolds makes a good beginning in analyzing how and why children's literature can transform current literary traditions. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals. P. J. Kurtz Minot State University