Radical Children's Literature : Future Visions and Aesthetic Transformations in Juvenile Fiction

Radical Children's Literature reappraises the place of children's literature in culture, showing it to be a creative space where writers and illustrators try out new ideas - about books, society, and the possibilities for narrative in an age of instant communication and multi-media. It looks at the stories young people are given about the world and themselves, and how these interact with changing childhoods and new technologies. "This book is designed to challenge the view that children's literature is innately conservative - that it lags behind writing for adults. By looking at a range of texts, past and present, it shows that children's literature is in fact a playground in which radical and innovative texts are devised. Developments in children's literature have not gone uncontested, particularly when a controversial children's book also wins a major literary prize. But to date there has been no focused examination of how far conventional boundaries have been breached in children's literature, or what it means that the boundaries between writing for adults and children are increasingly blurred. Neither has the cultural debt owed to children's literature as a source of innovation and assimilation of new ideas in writing, illustration and narrative experimentation been acknowledged. Radical Children's Literature begins this process by exploring how writing for children redirects the way in which the genres, texts and new technologies interact creatively with childhood and youth culture."--Jacket Front Matter....Pages i-xi Breaking Bounds: The Transformative Energy of Children’s Literature....Pages 1-23 Breaking the Frame: Picturebooks, Modernism, and New Media....Pages 24-44 And None of It was Nonsense....Pages 45-67 Useful Idiots: Interactions Between Youth Culture and Children’s Literature....Pages 68-87 Self-harm, Silence, and Survival: Despair and Trauma in Children’s Literature....Pages 88-113 Baby, You’re the Best: Sex and Sexuality in Contemporary Juvenile Fiction....Pages 114-130 Frightening Fiction: The Transformative Power of Fear....Pages 131-154 Back to the Future? New Forms and Formats in Juvenile Fiction....Pages 155-179 Conclusion: The Foundations of Future Fictions....Pages 180-183 Back Matter....Pages 184-215 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.

This book, now available in paperback, 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.

This book challenges much of the received wisdom about children's literature, typified by Jacqueline Rose's claim in The Case of Peter Pan, or, The Impossibility of Children's Fiction that children's literature is innately conservative.