New Directions in Childhood Studies - Innocence, Trauma, and Agency in the Twenty-First Century

This collection examines contemporary children's literature, film, and video games to explore how everyday realities like trauma, disaster, and death impact the experience of childhood in America today. Thus, the book updates childhood studies discourse by offering a more inclusive and realistic definition of childhood in the twenty-first century.

List of contents

Introduction, "Constructing the 21st Century Child"
James Curtis
Part I: Picturing a New Kind of Childhood
Chapter One: "Rainbows in the Window: Static Childhood in COVID-19 Picture Books"
Cara Byrne and Kristin Kondrlik
Chapter Two: "Picturing Political Agency in Childhood: Visual Rhetoric of Child Activism and
Identity in Children's Literature"
Meghan Whitfield
Chapter Three: "[Re]Interpreting the Deaf Child's Solitude: A Counternarrative to Cece Bell's El
Deafo"
S. Leigh Ann Cowan
Part II: The Rule of Law and Transgressive Constructions of American Childhood
Chapter Four: "Because What You Don't Know Can Kill You: Law, YA Lit, and the American
Adolescent Today"
Jamie M. Fine
Chapter Five: "These Are the Rooms We're Not Supposed to Go In...But Let's Go Anyway!":
Celebrating the Mobile Child, Embracing Nontraditional Kinship Structures, and Deconstructing
Neglect in The Florida Project"
Joseph V. Giunta
Part III: Technology and the Posthuman Child
Chapter Six: "Roblox and the Value in Suspending Playbor Time"
Sumaria Butt
Chapter Seven: "Happy Endings, Only $1.99: Uncovering the Corruption of Fairytales in Hope:
The Other Side of Adventure and its Online Legacy"
Imogen Nutting and Ryan Twomey
Part IV: The 21st Century and the Necessity of Trauma-Informed Narratives
Chapter Eight: "The New 'Normal'": Cancer and Childhood in Rob Harrell's Wink
Allyson Wierenga
Chapter Nine: "The Trauma of Childhood and Emerging into Adulthood in A Court of Thorns
and Roses"
Kirsten Bilger and Michael G. Cornelius
About the Contributors

About the author

Edited by James M. Curtis - Contributions by Kirsten Bilger; Sumaria Butt; Cara Byrne; Michael G. Cornelius; S. Leigh Ann Cowan; James M. Curtis; Jamie M. Fine; Joseph V. Giunta; Kristin Kondrlik; Imogen Nutting; Ryan Twomey; Meghan Whitfield and Allyson

Product details

• Authors: James M. Curtis
• Assisted by: James M. Curtis (Editor), Curtis James M. (Editor)
• Publisher: Lexington Books
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 01.01.2024
• EAN: 9781666940282
• ISBN: 978-1-66694-028-2
• No. of pages: 248
• Series: Children and Youth in Popular; Children and Youth in Popular Culture
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative literary studies; Social sciences, law, business > Social sciences (general); USA, Media Studies, Popular Culture, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Popular Culture, English, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Media Studies, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Children's Studies, LITERARY CRITICISM / American / General, LITERARY CRITICISM / Children's & Young Adult Literature, 21st Century, United States of America, USA, Age groups: children, Early 21st century c 2000 to c 2050, Children's & teenage literature studies, Children’s and teenage literature studies: general