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This collection takes informed and scholarly readers to the utmost frontier of children's literature criticism, from the intricate worlds of children's poetry, picturebooks and video games to the new theoretical constellations of critical plant studies, non-fiction studies and big data analyses of literature.

First Published in 2003. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company. Lydia Kokkola is a Collegium Researcher at the Turku Institute for Advanced Studies(TIAS) University of Turku, Finland. She is also Adjunct Professor of Children's Literature in English at Åbo Akademi University, Finland. \"Kokkola is committed to ethical criticism. She asks repeatedly how literature affects children’s thinking and beliefs about the Holocaust and fascism. This is a welcome approach, which is at its best, in my view...when it urges us to think seriously about the profound impact that literature can have on young readers...Kokkola combines theory and criticism of children’s literature with Holocaust studies in productive and knowledgeable ways.\" -- The Lion and the Unicorn \" Lydia Kokkola's study...is keenly narratological, and she often draws on formalist and structuralist approaches as she explicates texts. Like many before her, she is concerned with narratives that simultaneously reveal and conceal as they deal with horrific events, but the kinds of questions she asks focus specifically on how information can be withheld of divulged...Kokkola's approach also brings new dimensions to previous discussions of children's literature and the Holocaust.\" -- Prooftexts: A Journal of Jewish Literary History

Moving nimbly between literary and historical texts, Monica Flegel provides a much-needed interpretive framework for understanding the specific formulation of child cruelty popularized by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) in the late nineteenth century. Flegel considers a wide range of well-known and more obscure texts from the mid-eighteenth century to the early twentieth, including philosophical writings by Locke and Rousseau, poetry by Coleridge, Blake, and Caroline Norton, works by journalists and reformers like Henry Mayhew and Mary Carpenter, and novels by Frances Trollope, Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, and Arthur Morrison. Taking up crucial topics such as the linking of children with animals, the figure of the child performer, the relationship between commerce and child endangerment, and the problem of juvenile delinquency, Flegel examines the emergence of child abuse as a subject of legal and social concern in England, and its connection to earlier, primarily literary representations of endangered children. With the emergence of the NSPCC and the new crime of cruelty to children, new professions and genres, such as child protection and social casework, supplanted literary works as the authoritative voices in the definition of social ills and their cure. Flegel argues that this development had material effects on the lives of children, as well as profound implications for the role of class in representations of suffering and abused children. Combining nuanced close readings of individual texts with persuasive interpretations of their influences and limitations, Flegel's book makes a significant contribution to the history of childhood, social welfare, the family, and Victorian philanthropy.

What do Adam Mansbach's Go the F**k to Sleep and Barbara Park's MA! There's Nothing to Do Here! A Word from your Baby-in-Waiting have in common? Both are large-format picture books that you might find in the children's section of your local bookstore. However, their subject matter is decidedly intended for parents rather than children. In No Kids Allowed, Michelle Ann Abate examines a constellation of such books which she argues form a paradoxical new genre: children's literature for adults. Distinguishing children's literature for adults from YA and middle-grade fiction that appeals to adult readers, Abate argues that there is something unique and fascinating about this phenomenon in contemporary US culture. While historical studies of children's literature show that its relationship with adulthood is varied and complex, Abate suggests that this recent outcropping has its genesis with the 1986 publication of Dr. Seuss's You're Only Old Once!, cleverly subtitled A Book for Obsolete Children. Principally defined by its form and audience, children's literature, Abate demonstrates, engages with more than mere nostalgia when recast for grown-up readers. Parodies, politics, innuendo, and knowing prose captured in simple language and colorful illustrations do not infantilize adult readers; instead, they suggest that the relationship between childhood and adulthood may be something other than linear. Ultimately, Abate explores what happens to children's literature when arguably its most fundamental characteristic is removed: a readership of children. No Kids Allowed is the first book-length study of children's literary forms—including board books, coloring books, bedtime stories, and series detective fiction—written and published specifically for an adult audience. Abate's project examines how these narratives question the boundaries of children's literature while they simultaneously challenge the longstanding Western assumption that adulthood and childhood are separate and even mutually exclusive.

Melding memorable music and inspiring history, Freedom Song presents a fresh perspective on the civil rights movement by showing how songs of hope, faith, and freedom strengthened the movement and served as its voice. In this eye-opening account, you'll discover how churches and other groups--from the SNCC Freedom Singers to the Chicago Children's Choir--transformed music both religious and secular into electrifying anthems that furthered the struggle for civil rights.   From rallies to marches to mass meetings, music was ever-present in the movement. People sang songs to give themselves courage and determination, to spread their message to others, to console each other as they sat in jail. The music they shared took many different forms, including traditional spirituals once sung by slaves, jazz and blues music, and gospel, folk, and pop songs. Freedom Song explores in detail the galvanizing roles of numerous songs, including \"Lift Every Voice and Sing,\" \"The Battle of Jericho,\" \"Wade in the Water,\" and \"We Shall Overcome.\"   As Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., and many others took a stand against prejudice and segregation, a Chicago minister named Chris Moore started a children's choir that embraced the spirit of the civil rights movement and brought young people of different races together, young people who lent their voices to support African Americans struggling for racial equality. More than 50 years later, the Chicago Children's Choir continues its commitment to freedom and justice. An accompanying CD, Songs on the Road to Freedom, features the CCC performing the songs discussed throughout the book.

In the 1940s, folks at bars and restaurants would gather around a Panoram movie machine to watch three-minute films called Soundies, precursors to today's music videos. This history was all but forgotten until the digital era brought Soundies to phones and computer screens-including a YouTube clip starring a 102-year-old Harlem dancer watching her younger self perform in Soundies. In Soundies and the Changing Image of Black Americans on Screen: One Dime at a Time , Susan Delson takes a deeper look at these fascinating films by focusing on the role of Black performers in this little-known genre. She highlights the women performers, like Dorothy Dandridge, who helped shape Soundies, while offering an intimate look at icons of the age, such as Duke Ellington and Nat King Cole. Using previously unknown archival materials-including letters, corporate memos, and courtroom testimony-to trace the precarious path of Soundies, Delson presents an incisive pop-culture snapshot of race relations during and just after World War II. Perfect for readers interested in film, American history, the World War II era, and Black entertainment history, Soundies and the Changing Image of Black Americans on Screen and its companion video website (susandelson.com) bring the important contributions of these Black artists into the spotlight once again.

This engaging and stimulating book argues that Shakespeare's plays significantly influenced movie genres in the twentieth century, particularly in films concerning love in the classic Hollywood period. Shakespeare's 'green world' has a close functional equivalent in 'tinseltown' and on 'the silver screen', as well as in hybrid genres in Bollywood cinema. Meanwhile, Romeo and Juliet continues to be an enduring source for romantic tragedy on screen. The nature of generic indebtedness has not gained recognition because it is elusive and not always easy to recognise. The book traces generic links between Shakespeare's comedies of love and screen genres such as romantic comedy, 'screwball' comedy and musicals, as well as clarifying the use of common conventions defining the genres, such as mistaken identity, 'errors', disguise and 'shrew-taming'. Speculative, challenging and entertaining, the book will appeal to those interested in Shakespeare, movies and the representation of love in narratives.