Author: Julia Briggs
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
ISBN: 9781840142426
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 372
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Book Description
Responding to the astonishing success of J. K. Rowling and other contemporary authors, the editors of this timely volume take up the challenge of assessing the complex interplay of forces that have generated, and sometimes sustained, the popularity of children's books. Ranging from eighteenth-century chapbooks to the stories of Enid Blyton and Roald Dahl, and from science schoolbooks to Harry Potter, these essays show how authorial talent operates within its cultural context to make a children's classic.
Author: P. L. Travers
Publisher: HMH
ISBN: 0544574753
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 1027
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Book Description
The first four books featuring the world’s most beloved nanny, plus delightful bonus features! Since the 1934 publication of Mary Poppins, stories of this magical nanny have delighted children and adults for generations. This collection includes the first four tales by P. L. Travers, illustrated by Mary Shepard: Mary Poppins, Mary Poppins Comes Back, Mary Poppins Opens the Door, and Mary Poppins in the Park. Also including a foreword by Gregory Maguire, author of Wicked, who explores the significant differences between the book and movie versions, and an essay by P. L. Travers about the writing of Mary Poppins, this collection lets you travel with Mary on the east wind to Cherry Tree Lane in these stories that inspired films, a stage show, and young imaginations the world over. “When Mary Poppins is about, her young charges can never tell where the real world merges into make-believe. Neither can the reader, and that is one of the hallmarks of good fantasy.” —The New York Times
Author: Julia Briggs
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351910035
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 541
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Book Description
The astonishing success of J.K. Rowling and other contemporary children's authors has demonstrated how passionately children can commit to the books they love. But this kind of devotion is not new. This timely volume takes up the challenge of assessing the complex interplay of forces that have created the popularity of children's books both today and in the past. The essays collected here ask about the meanings and values that have been ascribed to the term 'popular'. They consider whether popularity can be imposed, or if it must always emerge from children's preferences. And they investigate how the Harry Potter phenomenon fits into a repeated cycle of success and decline within the publishing industry. Whether examining eighteenth-century chapbooks, fairy tales, science schoolbooks, Victorian adventures, waif novels or school stories, these essays show how historical and publishing contexts are vital in determining which books will succeed and which will fail, which bestsellers will endure and which will fade quickly into obscurity. As they considering the fiction of Angela Brazil, Enid Blyton, Roald Dahl and J.K. Rowling, the contributors carefully analyse how authorial talent and cultural contexts combine, in often unpredictable ways, to generate - and sometimes even sustain - literary success.
Author: Lucy Pearson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317024753
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 265
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Book Description
Lucy Pearson’s lively and engaging book examines British children’s literature during the period widely regarded as a ’second golden age’. Drawing extensively on archival material, Pearson investigates the practical and ideological factors that shaped ideas of ’good’ children’s literature in Britain, with particular attention to children’s book publishing. Pearson begins with a critical overview of the discourse surrounding children’s literature during the 1960s and 1970s, summarizing the main critical debates in the context of the broader social conversation that took place around children and childhood. The contributions of publishing houses, large and small, to changing ideas about children’s literature become apparent as Pearson explores the careers of two enormously influential children’s editors: Kaye Webb of Puffin Books and Aidan Chambers of Topliner Macmillan. Brilliant as an innovator of highly successful marketing strategies, Webb played a key role in defining what were, in her words, ’the best in children’s books’, while Chambers’ work as an editor and critic illustrates the pioneering nature of children's publishing during this period. Pearson shows that social investment was a central factor in the formation of this golden age, and identifies its legacies in the modern publishing industry, both positive and negative.
Author: Mark I. West
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
ISBN: 9780810848788
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 172
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Book Description
What do Paddington Bear, Rupert Bear, and Winnie the Pooh have in common, besides their ursine roots? They lived in real places, as well as in the imaginations of countless generations. Those places still exist. And inveterate globetrotter Mark West has been to them all. Children's Literature Tour of Great Britain provides detailed information on 49 important sites with a strong connection to children's literature. Each chapter begins with background information about the author (or, in the cases of King Arthur and Robin Hood, the character), in particular his or her writings for children. West offers tantalizing tidbits about birthplaces, memorials, landscapes, and gift shops, and concludes with complete visitor information for would-be literary pilgrims. Photographs, most of which were taken by West, should satisfy even the most demanding armchair traveler. Many of the sites on West's Tour are geared to children. Some are clearly intended for adults. All will add depth and delight to your next excursion into the fantastic (and fascinating) world of British children's literature.
Author: Laurence Talairach
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030725278
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 309
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Book Description
Animals, Museum Culture and Children’s Literature in Nineteenth-Century Britain: Curious Beasties explores the relationship between the zoological and palaeontological specimens brought back from around the world in the long nineteenth century—be they alive, stuffed or fossilised—and the development of children’s literature at this time. Children’s literature emerged as dizzying numbers of new species flooded into Britain with scientific expeditions, from giraffes and hippopotami to kangaroos, wombats, platypuses or sloths. As the book argues, late Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian children’s writers took part in the urge for mass education and presented the world and its curious creatures to children, often borrowing from their museum culture and its objects to map out that world. This original exploration illuminates how children’s literature dealt with the new ordering of the world, offering a unique viewpoint on the construction of science in the long nineteenth century.
Author: James Holt McGavran
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780820334875
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
These essays document and examine the transformation of children's literature during the Romantic period, and trace Romanticism's influence on Victorian children's literature using a variety of critical approaches, including neo-historicist, feminist, mythic, reader-response, and formalist.
Author: Blanka Grzegorczyk
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317962621
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 146
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Book Description
This book considers how contemporary British children’s books engage with some of the major cultural debates of recent years, and how they resonate with the current preoccupations and tastes of the white mainstream British reading public. A central assumption of this volume is that Britain’s imperial past continues to play a key role in its representations of race, identity, and history. The insistent inclusion of questions relating to colonialism and power structures in recent children’s novels exposes the complexities and contradictions surrounding the fictional treatment of race relations and ethnicity. Postcolonial children’s literature in Britain has been inherently ambivalent since its cautious beginnings: it is both transgressive and authorizing, both undercutting and excluding. Grzegorczyk considers the ways in which children’s fictions have worked with and against particular ideologies of race. The texts analyzed in this collection portray ethnic minorities as complex, hybrid products of colonialism, global migrations, and the ideology of multiculturalism. By examining the ideological content of these novels, Grzegorczyk demonstrates the centrality of the colonial past to contemporary British writing for the young.
Author: Julia Eccleshare
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781844036714
Category : Best books
Languages : en
Pages : 960
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Book Description
1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up is the perfect introduction to the very best books of childhood: those books that have a special place in the heart of every reader. It introduces a wonderfully rich world of literature to parents and their children, offering both new titles and much-loved classics that many generations have read and enjoyed. From wordless picture books and books introducing the first words and sounds of the alphabet through to hard-hitting and edgy teenage fiction, the titles featured in this book reflect the wealth of reading opportunities for children.Browsing the titles in 1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up will take you on a journey of discovery into fantasy, adventure, history, contermporary life, and much more. These books will enable you to travel to some of the most famous imaginary worlds such as Narnia, Middle Earth, and Hogwart's School. And the route taken may be pretty strange, too. You may fall down a rabbit hole, as Alice does on her way to Wonderland, or go through the back of a wardrobe to reach the snowy wastes of Narnia.
Author: Catherine Butler
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137026030
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 217
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Book Description
This book offers a critical account of historical books about Britain written for children, including realist novels, non-fiction, fantasy and alternative histories. It also investigates the literary, ideological and philosophical challenges involved in writing about the past, especially for an audience whose knowledge of history is often limited.
