scholarly journals Into the Wild Childhood: A Study of Wildness in Three 21st-Century Picturebooks

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 54-72
Author(s):  
Anna Mik
Keyword(s):  
Children's Literature ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
Cultural Texts ◽  
Maurice Sendak

While the majority of the ‘wild’ children’s literature presents male human char­acters, in the 21st century, there is an increasing tendency to publish texts showing a different kind of wildness. In this article, the author analyses three picturebooks published in the 21st century that feature protagonists other than male and/or hu­man: a wild girl (Wild by Emily Hughes, 2012), a pet dog (Such a Good Boy by Mari­anna Coppo, 2020), and a wild tiger (Mr Tiger Goes Wild by Peter Brown, 2013). She investigates to what extent (if any) non-male and/or non-human wildness in these works differs from the most popular one in children’s literature. The author analyses the concept of wildness in the context of a famous children’s picturebook featuring a wild protagonist, Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak (1963), and other cultural texts using this motif.

scholarly journals Minotaur, Morlok, bestia… Obrazy niemieckich żołnierzy w polskiej literaturze dziecięcej o Zagładzie

2021 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
pp. 75-84
Author(s):  
Krzysztof Rybak
Keyword(s):  
Children's Literature ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Hannah Arendt ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
Final Part ◽  
Banality Of Evil ◽  
Cultural Texts

The aim of the article is to create a ‘bestiary’ of monstrous German soldiers appearing in Polish Holocaust children’s literature of the 21st century. Body of analyzed works consists of Rutka by Joanna Fabicka, Bezsenność Jutki by Dorota Combrzyńska-Nogala, and Arka czasu by Marcin Szczygielski, among others. The figures of monstrosity were divided into three groups, as the characters (1) preserve the natural appearance of a man, or exceed the physical norm as being (2) the result of the author’s imagination or (3) references to other cultural texts. The negative and inhuman way of depicting the antagonists raises a certain doubt, caused by the reading of Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil by Hannah Arendt - the final part of the article is devoted to the problem expressed in the subtitle of her work.

scholarly journals American and Russian children’s literature at the beginning of the 21st century. The diversity of possibilities

Bibliosphere ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 80-88
Author(s):  
O. B. Bukhina
Keyword(s):  
Women Writers ◽  
Children's Literature ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Picture Books ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
Psychological Trauma ◽  
Non Fiction ◽  
Sensitive Topics ◽  
Russian Children’S Literature

Comparing changes in publication policies, the influence of translated books, and an important role that women writers play now, author analyzed new tendencies in American and Russian children’s and teens’ literature. The author concludes that American picture books reflect the varieties of contemporary experiences, and the Russian ones thrive with poetry and non-fiction. The comparison of teens’ literature of both countries shows a lot of similarities; both encompass more sensitive topics, such as illness, death, suicide, drugs, psychological trauma, and bulling.

scholarly journals To Traumatize or to Put under a Taboo? Holocaust Narratives in Children’s Literature

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 251-264
Author(s):  
Krzysztof Rybak
Keyword(s):  
Children's Literature ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
Young Reader ◽  
Main Character ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Holocaust Narratives

The article investigates the ways of representing the Holocaust in children’s literature published in Poland in the 21st century (e.g. Joanna Rudniańska’s Kotka Brygidy and Smoke by Antón Fortes and Joanna Concejo). Phenomena such as anti-Semitism or death of the main character, called by researchers and critics inappropriate for a young audience, are analyzed with the use of the research on taboo in children’s literature (Bogusława Sochańska and Justyna Czechowska) as well as confronted with the threat of “traumatization” of the young reader (Małgorzata Wójcik-Dudek). The analysis proves that the Shoah only appears to be well-represented in children’s literature as many topics are still omitted.

scholarly journals Children’s Literature: Dimensions of Imitation and Child Innocence in Mkatshwa’s Leo in the Library

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 32
Author(s):  
Angela Ngozi Dick ◽  
Augustine Emeka Ugwumgbo
Keyword(s):  
Children's Literature ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Social Values ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
Children's Books ◽  
Children’S Books ◽  
Mimetic Theory ◽  
Children's Literacy ◽  
Pictorial Representations ◽  
Research Studies

The 21st century is marked by increased interest in children’s literacy. Part of such academic revolution is more emphasis on child literacy and the increase in the production of Children’s books. Consequently, this research, studies the characteristics of Children’s Literature using the book Leo in the Library. It also understudies the hermeneutics of colour and spelling, showing how the author used them to express children’s innocence. It uses mimetic theory to analyze the book. Thus, it evaluates how the story book Leo in the Library imitates or mirrors the worldview, life and aspirations of children in this century. The research discovered and outlined many characteristics of children’s literature as can be perceived from the book Leo in the Library. They include childlike stories, simplicity of expressions, use of illustrations, attractive colours and pictorial representations, inculturation into social values, shaping the creativity of future writers, centres the child into the possibility of the demand of the emerging world, among others. The writer recommends that children’s literature texts have to be, colourful, didactic, attractive and full of illustrations. This research identifies the characteristics of children’s literature based on Leo in the Library using mimetic theory. It also looks into how child’s innocence is depicted by the use of colour and spelling on the cover page of Leo in the Library as shown in the illustration below.

Getting Better: Children’s Literature Theory and the It Gets Better Project1

2020 ◽  
pp. 135-152
Author(s):  
Derritt Mason
Keyword(s):  
Children's Literature ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
Cultural Discourse ◽  
Peter Pan ◽  
Queer Youth ◽  
Cultural Texts ◽  
Literature Theory ◽  
A Site

This chapter considers Dan Savage and Terry Miller’s It Gets Better project, an anti-bullying YouTube campaign that launched in 2010 following a rash of queer youth suicides, and argues that this project is a site of convergence for children’s literature and adult fictions. Mason suggests that the circulation and adaptation of cultural texts like It Gets Better across and through multiple genres—what he refers to, after Kathryn Bond Stockton, as a text and/or genre’s “sideways growth”—challenge critics to widen their theoretical lenses for the study of young people’s texts and culture. The book version of It Gets Better engages in a repetitive anxious rehearsal of its own metanarrative of “getting better” and renders the project (im)possible, Mason argues, drawing on Jacqueline Rose’s The Case of Peter Pan. While It Gets Better fails politically, it succeeds nonetheless at generating critical cultural discourse about how adults address queer youth.

Maurice Sendak: The Child as Artist

PMLA ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 129 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-103
Author(s):  
George R. Bodmer ◽  
John Cech ◽  
Derick Dreher ◽  
U. C. Knoepflmacher ◽  
Philip Nel ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Children's Literature ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
Maurice Sendak

Maurice Sendak was an artist who not only produced extraordinary art and memorable books but also expanded the range of children's literature, what it can portray. In doing so, he eagerly dealt with his own life, his anxieties and joys, and focused on the importance of art to a child's life.

scholarly journals Pochwała Koziołka Matołka, czyli o mądrości literatury dla najmłodszych

2019 ◽  
pp. 13-17
Author(s):  
Krystyna Heska‑Kwaśniewicz
Keyword(s):  
Children's Literature ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
Young Readers ◽  
The World ◽  
The Times

The article attempts to reread the canonical work of Polish children’s literature. It perceives its protagonist, Koziołek Matołek, as a sage and insightful observer of the world, whose disguise of a fool allows him to distance himself from it. Hence, Przygody Koziołka Matołka [The Adventures of Matołek the Billy‑goat] might also serve didactic purposes when it comes to the young readers in the 21st century; these might learn from it how to laugh at themselves or dissociate from problems, which are indispensable qualities regardless of the times we live in.

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