Family in Childrens and Young Adult Literature

Family in Children's and Young Adult Literature is a comprehensive study of the family in Anglophone children's and Young Adult literature from the early nineteenth century to the present day. Written by intellectual leaders in the field from the UK, the Americas, Europe, and Australia, this collection of essays explores the significance of the family and of familial and quasi-familial relationships in texts by a wide range of authors, including the Grimms, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Rudyard Kipling, Enid Blyton, Judy Blume, Jaqueline Wilson, Malorie Blackman, Melvin Burgess, J.K. Rowling, Neil Gaiman, and others. Author-based and critical survey essays explore evolving depictions of LGBTQIA+ and BAME families; migrant and refugee narratives; the popular tropes of the orphan protagonist and the wicked stepmother; sibling and intergenerational familial relationships; fathers and fatherhood; the anthropomorphic animal and surrogate family; and the fractured family in paranormal and dystopian YA literature. The breadth of essays in Family in Children's and Young Adult Literature encourages readers to think beyond the outdated but culturally privileged 'nuclear family' and is a vital resource for students, academics, educators, and practitioners.

List of contents

Foreword
Ann Alston

Introduction: Exploding the Nuclear Family
Eleanor Spencer and Jade Dillon Craig

Part I: Beyond Wicked Stepmothers and Absent(-minded) Fathers

1. Where Are They Now? Manifestations of (Monstrous) Mothers in Fairy Tales

Claudia Schwabe



2. Perspectives on Fathers and Fatherhood within Children's Literature: A Case Study of Katya Balen's October, October

Richard Charlesworth



3. 'Shrewd sound-hearted maiden aunts': The Aunt Figure in Children's Literature

Jane Suzanne Carroll



4. "What's the point of grandpa?": Grandparents in Children's Literature

Vanessa Joosen

Part II: Home, Nation, and Empire


5. Families Formed, Found and Fractured in the Children's Novels of Frances Hodgson Burnett

Elisabeth Rose Gruner



6. The Feral Child and the More-than-Human Family

Jessica Straley



7. A Gift to the Family of Britain: Depictions of African, Caribbean and Black British Families in British Children's Literature after 1970

Karen Sands-O'Connor and Phyllis Ramage



8. Kinning with Picturebooks about La Frontera

Macarena García-González and Evelyn Arizpe

Part III: Growing Pains and Teenage Dreams


9. Bowlby, Blyton, and Child Care Issues in The Famous Five series

Nicholas Tucker



10. From First Born to Second Fiddle: Empathy is an Argument if Your Name is Peter Hatcher in Judy Blume's Fudge Books

Joseph Michael Sommers



11. "Mum's no fun now": Constructing the Maternal in the Family Fictions of Jacqueline Wilson

Kay Waddilove



12. 'Chasing the Dragon': The Anxieties of Family in the Fiction of Melvin Burgess

Alyson Miller



13. A Taste for the Secret: Tracing Secretive Families in Malorie Blackman's Fiction

Blanka Grzegorczyk



14. Queering the Family in Young Adult Literature: Adam Silvera's They Both Die at the End, Familial Disruption, and the Space of the Home

Angel Daniel Matos

Part IV: Alternative Families in Alternative Worlds


15. Lost Boys, Found Boys: Masculinities and Families in J.K Rowling's Harry Potter

Eleanor Spencer



16. Unhomely Domestic Spaces in Neil Gaiman's Coraline

Jade Dillon Craig



17. Apple to Pomegranate: Vampires and Families in the Twilight Saga

Lisa Nevarez



18. Breeders, Rebels and Warriors: The Oppression of Adolescent Mothers in the Young Adult Dystopias The Lone City trilogy and Gather the Daughters

Malin Alkestrand

 

About the author

Eleanor Spencer is Principal of Janet Clarke Hall at the University of Melbourne, where she is also an Honorary Senior Fellow in the School of Culture and Communications, teaching on the English and Theatre Studies programme. She is the recipient of a Frank Knox Memorial Fellowship and was Visiting Fellow in the Department of English at Harvard University. Her research interests include twentieth and twenty-first-century British and American poetry, and children’s and Young Adult fiction. Her recent publications include the New Casebook on American Poetry since 1945 (2016), and essays in Sylvia Plath in Context (2019) and A Companion to Contemporary British and Irish Poetry 1960−2015 (2020).
Jade Dillon Craig is Associate Professor of Children’s Literature and Young Learners at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway. Her research interests include children’s literature, Alice studies, visual texts, cinematography, and gender studies. She has published book chapters in volumes with Palgrave Macmillan, Peter Lang, and McFarland. Her most recent publication features in Barnboken: Journal of Children’s Literature Research. Jade is a project leader for eBLINK (engelske bildebøker i norske klasserom) and co-founder of the Children’s Literature Education and Research group at NTNU (with Alyssa Magee Lowery).

Summary

Family in Children's and Young Adult Literature is a comprehensive study of the family in Anglophone children’s and Young Adult literature from the early nineteenth century to the present day.

Product details

• Authors: Eleanor Dillon Craig Spencer
• Assisted by: Jade Dillon Craig (Editor), Eleanor Spencer (Editor), Spencer Eleanor (Editor)
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd.
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 15.09.2023
• EAN: 9781032217048
• ISBN: 978-1-0-3221704-8
• No. of pages: 256
• Series: Children's Literature and Culture
• Subjects: Social sciences, law, business > Social sciences (general); History, Cultural Studies, LITERARY CRITICISM / General, YOUNG ADULT FICTION / General, LITERARY CRITICISM / Children's & Young Adult Literature, Humanities, Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900, Literary studies: from c 1900 -, Literary theory, Literary studies: c 1900 to c 2000, Children's & teenage literature studies, Children’s and teenage literature studies: general