Bloomsbury Introduction to Children's and Young Adult Literature

Karen Coats is Professor of English at Illinois State University, USA. She is author of Looking Glasses and Neverlands: Lacan, Desire, and Subjectivity in Children’s Literature (2004), and co-editor, with Shelby A. Wolf, Patricia Enciso, and Christine A. Jenkins, of the Handbook of Research on Children’s and Young Adult Literature (2010).

• IntroductionChapter 1: Ideologies of Childhood and History of Children’s LiteratureChapter 2: Contemporary Insights into Child and Adolescent DevelopmentChapter 3: Thinking Theoretically about Children’s and Young Adult LiteratureChapter 4: Poetry and Poetic LanguageChapter 5: Reading (with) PicturesChapter 6: Thinking about StoryChapter 7: Drama, Film, New Media, Oh My!: Children’s and Young Adult Literature on Stage and ScreensChapter 8: Tales We Live ByChapter 9: ‘The web itself is a miracle’: Nonfiction and Informational LiteratureChapter 9 ¾: The In-Betweens of Children’s and Young Adult LiteratureChapter 10: Narrative Fiction: As Real as it Gets?Chapter 11: Are We Posthuman Yet?: Fantasy and Speculative FictionChapter 12: Entering the Professional Conversation

This thoughtfully organized, wide-ranging, and innovative book draws from cultural studies, literary studies, and child development studies in its consideration of diverse forms and genres … Throughout the book, Karen cracks jokes, shares personal anecdotes, acknowledges questions she continues to with, and urges readers to disagree with and complicate the points that she makes. In short, she displays how pleasure, uncertainty, and exchange of knowledge are part and parcel of the practice of scholarship.