scholarly journals Literature for Children

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Manly
Keyword(s):  
Children's Literature ◽  
John Locke ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
William Blake ◽  
Mary Wollstonecraft ◽  
Maria Edgeworth ◽  
William Godwin ◽  
Educational Theories ◽  
The Future ◽  
Anna Barbauld

The child is often imagined in the work of Coleridge and Wordsworth as a source of creative energies and of hope for the future of humanity, as well as symbolizing a return to original naturalness. But these ideas about childhood were not peculiar to the Lake poets: they have their origin in the politicized educational theories of John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, as well as in Joseph Priestley’s revolutionary rhetoric and the children’s literature that emerged from this tradition. Variously combining these influences, a new, often realist children’s literature written by Anna Barbauld, John Aikin, Mary Wollstonecraft, William Blake, Maria Edgeworth, and William Godwin sought to revolutionize the forms and content of earlier books for children. The new children’s literature of the 1790s and early 1800s envisaged a rising generation of socially engaged thinkers capable of transforming society.

The Innovative Animals of Children’s Fiction

2020 ◽  
pp. 74-108
Author(s):  
Jane Spencer
Keyword(s):  
William Blake ◽  
Mary Wollstonecraft ◽  
Maria Edgeworth ◽  
Animal Minds ◽  
Anna Letitia Barbauld ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Narrative Techniques ◽  
Children’S Fiction ◽  
Children's Fiction ◽  
Animal Subjectivity

This chapter discusses the animals of early children’s fiction, showing that their didactic and affective purposes are rooted in the period’s conception of childhood as a time of special closeness to animal being. Children’s writers teach children to grow away from animality, but also use animals to encourage the child reader’s sympathy. The fiction’s message of kindness to animals depends both on reminding children of feelings they share with nonhuman creatures and on explaining human superiority. The chapter argues that children’s writers make a distinct contribution to a developing literature of animal subjectivity. They make significant innovations in narrative techniques for representing nonhuman viewpoints, not only in their use of animal narrators but in third-person narrative access to non-linguistic animal minds. Writers include Dorothy Kilner, Thomas Day, Sarah Trimmer, Anna Letitia Barbauld, Mary Wollstonecraft, William Blake, Dorothy Wordsworth, Maria Edgeworth, and Edward Augustus Kendall.

scholarly journals Tattoos Tell Stories: Children’s Literature Tattoos as a Form of Life Narrative

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. BB5-BB23
Author(s):  
Marjolein Breems
Keyword(s):  
Children's Literature ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
Literary Work ◽  
Harry Potter ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Online Questionnaire ◽  
Life Narrative ◽  
Form Of Life ◽  
Personal Stories ◽  
The Future

Tattoos and children’s literature seem to have little in common, but they come together in the form of children’s literature tattoos, which I argue in this article to be a new form of life narrative. A lot of literary tattoos are inspired by children’s literature such as the Harry Potter-series and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Despite being inspired by a literary work, the tattoos function as personal memoirs of childhood as well as a reflection of the tattooees’ hopes for the future and who they want to become. I empirically study these children’s literature tattoos as life narratives by combining three data sets: blogs with personal stories related to literary tattoos, an online questionnaire about the meaning of children’s literature tattoos for tattooees themselves, and semi-structured interviews. Based on my research, I argue that children’s literature tattoos tell personal stories about the tattooees and their lives and can thus be considered a form of life narrative. Children’s literature tattoos narrate what someone has been through, what someone likes, but most of all the things that shape the person and that they hope will continue to shape them in the future.

Research in ActionSerendipity and Children's Literature Research in the Library

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 162-178
Author(s):  
Kenneth Kidd ◽  
Lucy Pearson ◽  
Sarah Pyke
Keyword(s):  
Children's Literature ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
Exploratory Research ◽  
Archival Research ◽  
Academic World ◽  
Literature Research ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Impact

Serendipity has become a ‘sine qua non of archival research’ (Tamboukou 151), but it is less clear how it might be cultivated – or even whether such a pursuit is worthwhile. Newcastle University's 2015 masterclass on the place of the archive within children's literature research offered the opportunity to explore the role of serendipity from several perspectives, exposing both the possibilities and the limitations of serendipity in the archive. Paradoxically, serendipity is best fostered by sustained scholarly enquiry, but it also depends on a willingness to move beyond a focus on specific outcomes. This raises questions about the future of serendipitous research in an academic world which allows increasingly little time for exploratory research and about the impact of new technologies.

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