Edinburgh Critical Guides to LiteratureThis series provides accessible yet provocative introductions to a wide rangeof literatures. The volumes will initiate an... » 

Edinburgh Critical Guides to LiteratureThis series provides accessible yet provocative introductions to a wide rangeof literatures. The volumes will initiate and deepen the readers understandingof key literary movements periods and genres and consider debates that informthe past present and future of literary study. Resources such as glossaries ofkey terms and details of archives and internet sites are also provided makingeach volume a comprehensive critical guide.This guide introduces students to the unique challenges of working withchildrens literature.The book outlines what is different about writing for children followed by asuccinct account of the often neglected history of childrens literature. Itgoes on to examine a number of genres fairy tales and fables moral tales andbooks of instruction fantasy and adventure stories domestic and schoolstories and poetry. These accounts are inclusive and wideranging focusingprimarily on the multiplicity of British and American texts published betweenthe mideighteenth century and today and the religious political ideologicaland pedagogical contexts which influenced them. The possible futures of thestudy of childrens literature are discussed especially the wide variety ofscholarly methodologies which are increasingly being used in the analysis ofchildrens literature.Key featuresFirst concise and affordable introductory guide to childrens literature.Extensive coverage of childrens literature across genres continents andfrom the beginnings of the form to Harry Potter and Philip Pullman.Examines key theoretical questions including definition dual audiencecanonicity the relationship between text and image childist criticism andcrossreading. Links close reading of texts with the historical and cultural context oftheir production and reception.Extensive bibliography with a particular emphasis on internet resourcesthrough which rare and outofprint primary texts may be accessed. «