The The Nation in Children's Literature: Nations of Childhood

This book explores the meaning of nation or nationalism in children’s literature and how it constructs and represents different national experiences. The contributors discuss diverse aspects of children’s literature and film from interdisciplinary and multicultural approaches, ranging from the short story and novel to science fiction and fantasy from a range of locations including Canada, Australia, Taiwan, Norway, America, Italy, Great Britain, Iceland, Africa, Japan, South Korea, India, Sweden and Greece. The emergence of modern nation-states can be seen as coinciding with the historical rise of children’s literature, while stateless or diasporic nations have frequently formulated their national consciousness and experience through children’s literature, both instructing children as future citizens and highlighting how ideas of childhood inform the discourses of nation and citizenship. Because nation and childhood are so intimately connected, it is crucial for critics and scholars to shed light on how children’s literatures have constructed and represented historically different national experiences. At the same time, given the massive political and demographic changes in the world since the nineteenth century and the formation of nation states, it is also crucial to evaluate how the national has been challenged by changing national languages through globalization, international commerce, and the rise of English. This book discusses how the idea of childhood pervades the rhetoric of nation and citizenship, and how children and childhood are represented across the globe through literature and film. THE NATION IN CHILDREN’S LITERATURE Nations of Childhood 6 Copyright 7 Contents 8 List of Figures 12 Series Editor’s Forward 14 First Things—Introduction 16 Part I The Child and the Nation-Lessons in Citizenship 24 Chapter 1 A New “Bend in the Road”: Navigating Nationhood through L. M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables 26 Chapter 2 Ski Tracks in the Wilderness: Nature and Nation inNorwegian Young Adult Books from the 1930s 38 Chapter 3 Wild Nature Revisited: Negotiations of the National Self-Imagination 54 Part II Subversive Tales—Critiquing the Nation 66 Chapter 4 Dangerous Children and Children in Danger: Reading American Comics under the Italian Fascist Régime 68 Chapter 5 The World Is a Confused Pink Sheep: Subversive Uses of Icelandic Themes in the Poetry of Þórarinn Eldjárn 84 Chapter 6 Deconstructions of the (Japanese) Nation-State in Uehashi Nahoko’s Moribito (Guardian) Series 96 Chapter 7 “The Ghost Remembers Only What It Wants To”: Traumas of Girlhood as a Metonym for the Nation in the South Korean Whispering Corridors (Yeogo Goedam) Series 112 Part III Nations Before and Within 126 Chapter 8 Nation as Home? A New Quest for Taiwanese Aboriginal Literature 128 Chapter 9 Nation-Building in Australia: The Pre-Federation Children’s Novels of Ethel Turner 140 Chapter 10 “Our Motherland”: Mapping an Identity in Bengali Children’s Literature 154 Part IV Empire, Globalization, and Cosmopolitan Consciousness 174 Chapter 11 Writing and Righting History: Henty’s Nation 176 Chapter 12 Empire and Nation in the Lifework of Arthur Mee 190 Chapter 13 International Classic Characters and National Ideologies: Alice and Pinocchio in Greece 208 Part V Childhood as Nation Imagined—Once Upon a Time to Be 222 Chapter 14 Medievalism and Nationhood in Children’s Literature 224 Chapter 15 Set in Stone: Runes, Nation, Childhood 238 Chapter 16 Post-Fordist Nation: The Economics of Childhood and the New Global Citizenship 250 Chapter 17 “I Thought I Lived in a Country Where I Had Rights”: Conceptualising Child Citizenship in the Posthuman Era 262 Postscript: Where Children Rule? 278 Contributors 288 Index 294 This book explores the meaning of nation or nationalism in childrens literature and how it constructs and represents different national experiences. The contributors discuss diverse aspects of childrens literature and film from interdisciplinary and multicultural approaches, ranging from the short story and novel to science fiction and fantasy from an array of countries. The emergence of modern nation-states can be seen as coinciding with the historical rise of childrens literature, while stateless or diasporic nations have frequently formulated their national consciousness and experience through childrens literature, both instructing children as future citizens and highlighting how ideas of childhood inform the discourses of nation and citizenship. Because nation and childhood are so intimately connected, it is crucial for critics and scholars to shed light on how childrens literatures have constructed and represented historically different national experiences. At the same time, given the massive political and demographic changes in the world since the nineteenth century and the formation of nation states, it is also crucial to evaluate how the national has been challenged by changing national languages through globalization, international commerce, and the rise of English. This book discusses how the idea of childhood pervades the rhetoric of nation and citizenship, and how children and childhood are represented across the globe through literature and film. Pt. I. The Child And The Nation : Lessons In Citizenship. -- Pt. Ii. Subversive Tales : Critiquing The Nation. -- Pt. Iii. Nations Before And Within. -- Pt. Iv. Empire, Globalization, And Cosmopolitan Consciousness. -- Pt. V. Childhood As Nation Imagined : Once Upon A Time To Be. Edited By Christopher Kit Kelen And Björn Sundmark. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.