The Hidden Adult

Defining Children's Literature
Erscheinungsjahr 2008
ISBN: 978-0-8018-8980-6
Verlag: Johns Hopkins University Press

Buch, Englisch, 408 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 685 g

What exactly is a children’s book? How is children’s literature defined as a genre? A leading scholar presents close readings of six classic stories to answer these questions and offer a clear definition of children’s writing as a distinct literary form.

Perry Nodelman begins by considering the plots, themes, and structures of six works: "The Purple Jar," Alice in Wonderland, Dr. Doolittle, Henry Huggins, The Snowy Day, and Plain City—all written for young people of varying ages in different times and places—to identify shared characteristics. He points out markers in each work that allow the adult reader to understand it as a children’s story, shedding light on ingrained adult assumptions and revealing the ways in which adult knowledge and experience remain hidden in apparently simple and innocent texts.

Nodelman then engages a wide range of views of children's literature from authors, literary critics, cultural theorists, and specialists in education and information sciences. Through this informed dialogue, Nodelman develops a comprehensive theory of children's literature, exploring its commonalities and shared themes.

The Hidden Adult is a focused and sophisticated analysis of children’s literature and a major contribution to the theory and criticism of the genre.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Nodelman, Perry

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Kinder- und Jugendliteratur, Märchen, Mythen, Sagen
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Englische Literatur
• Geisteswissenschaften Sprachwissenschaft Sprachwissenschaften Semiotik

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgments
1. Six Texts
Different Texts, Same Genre
Language: The Text and Its Shadows
Focalization: Who Sees and What They Know
Desire Confronts Knowledge
Home and Away: Essential Doubleness
Variation
Summary
2. Exploring Assumptions
Reading as an Adult
Making Choices: Exploring Representativeness
Assumptions about Genre
Genre and Field
Genre and Genres
3. Children's Literature as a Genre
Defining Children's Literature
No Genre
Different but Not Distinct
Literature and Children
For the Good of Children
Literature for Boys and Literature for Girls
Middle-Class Subjectivity
Doubleness
Specific Markers
About Children
The Eyes of Children
Simplicity and Sublimation
The Hidden Adult
Narrator and Narratee
Showing, Not Telling
Happy Endings
Achieving Utopia
Binaries
Repetition
Variation
A Comprehensive Statement?
The Genre in the Field
Sameness and Difference
The Sameness of Children's Literature
Different Children's Literatures: The Effects of Personality and History
Different Children's Literatures: The Effects of Nationality
4. The Genre in the Field
Distinctive Texts in the Genre
Conclusion: Children's Literature as Nonadult?
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Nodelman, Perry
Perry Nodelman is professor emeritus of English at the University of Winnipeg and author of The Pleasure of Children’s Literature and Words About Pictures: The Narrative Art of Children’s Picture Books. Professor Nodelman is also an accomplished author of children’s books such as Behaving Bradley.

Perry Nodelman is professor emeritus of English at the University of Winnipeg and author of The Pleasure of Children’s Literature and Words About Pictures: The Narrative Art of Children’s Picture Books. Professor Nodelman is also an accomplished author of children’s books such as Behaving Bradley.