It is estimated that a third of children know someone living with dementia, and there are now many picturebooks for young children that help to explain the changes dementia can bring to family life. Despite their number, there has been little examination of what these books communicate about health and illness. To address this, the current study…

For decades, feminists have tried to dismantle and argue against the image of the Medusa as a figure of female monstrousness. This paper claims that the celebrated British author and poet Ted Hughes, in his novella for children, The Iron Woman, redeemed the Medusa and presented her in a new light that revealed her as a victim, a healer, and a…

This article explores how adult writers of children's literature are implicitly positioned as translators between "adult" and "child" culture. Adopting the lens of metaphor theory, it traces the conceptual correspondence between adult metaphors of childhood (e.g., the child-savage analogy) and the metaphor of the adult…

Mainstream American culture still commonly considers disabilities as defects. Whether physical, emotional, or mental in nature, these features are hindering an individual, separating them from the perceived norm, and having a negative impact on their acceptance. Films and literature targeting children and young adults currently are seeking to…

Picture books, as both sophisticated aesthetic objects and literary texts, provide the ideal site for critically examining how values and ideology are transmitted to children. How the child reader might be affected by the process of reading a picture book--that is, how he or she might be moved emotionally and potentially gain new insights about…

When put together with the other parts of The Giver Quartet, "Son" (2012), Lowry's recently published concluding book, emerges as an odd exception to the focus on young adult protagonists since it foregrounds the mother's perspective and addresses the issue of motherhood. It presents the reader with at least three conceptual models of…

This article examines the connections between posthumanism and narrative form in Philip Pullman's "Clockwork." Beginning with an account of Pullman's materialism, it argues that the novel represents consciousness and agency as emergent properties of matter, a position that manifests itself first in the tale's figurative language and later in the…

This article is an attempt to contribute to the conversation about "go[ing] beyond all kinds of binary thinking" (Lenz Taguchi, "Going beyond the theory/practice divide in early childhood education: introducing an intra-active pedagogy," 2010, p. 50), especially the binary which positions "adults" and "children" as being powerful and powerless,…

This article examines the multiple worlds in Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy in light Pierre Bourdieu's "space of possibles" and the combination of chance and choice that impact Lyra and Will's decisions. Rather than viewing chance or destiny as disempowering, this article considers how the protagonists' choices also encourage…

When Ralph Ellison's "Invisible Man" was published in 1952, he could not have known the impact his metaphor of invisibility would have on adolescent and YA literature. However, upon closer inspection, the importance and prevalence of his metaphor becomes evident. Authors of adolescent and YA literature routinely use the metaphor as an intertextual…

This discussion explores the role that storytelling and stories might have in leading children towards an awareness of uncertainty and ambiguity in relation to Holocaust representation. It focuses on Morris Gleitzman's "Once" ("2006"), its sequel "Then" ("2008"), and John Boyne's "The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas" ("2006") to consider the narrative…

This article examines the consolatory possibilities presented by Markus Zusak's recent crossover novel "The Book Thief," investigating the degree to which the novel delivers the simultaneous consolation and confrontation identified with children's and young adults' Holocaust texts by such critics as Adrienne Kertzer and Lawrence Baron. Contending…

Given the serious decline in the number of undergraduates majoring in the humanities in general, and literature in particular, teachers of Children's Literature have a unique opportunity to serve their discipline by tapping the power of classroom dialogue to introduce students to the practical reasoning central to humanistic study. This essay…

This article analyses the symbolic meaning of the Moon in two "bande dessinee" books from the Tintin series, Herge's "Destination Moon" ("Objectif Lune," 1953) and its sequel "Explorers on the Moon" ("On a Marche sur la Lune," 1954). It argues that these two volumes stand out in the series for their graphic, narrative and philosophical emphasis on…

The debates that have arisen regarding Darwin's theories of evolution and Christian views of creation and their place in education in the United States have frequently been extremely heated, resulting in trials, hearings, and laws. This article provides an overview of some of the disagreements and illustrates how David Almond's British novel,…