Middle Ages in Children's Literature

Clare Bradford is Professor of Literary Studies at Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia. Her books include Reading Race: Aboriginality in Australian Children's Literature (2001), Unsettling Narratives: Postcolonial Readings of Children's Literature (2007), and New World Orders in Contemporary Children's Literature: Utopian Transformations (with Kerry Mallan, John Stephens and Robyn McCallum, 2008).

• Introduction 1. Thinking about the Middle Ages 2. Temporality and the Medieval 3. Spatiality and the Medieval 4. Disabilities in Medievalist Fiction 5. Monstrous Bodies, Medievalist Inflexions 6. Medievalist Animals and their Humans 7. The Laughable Middle Ages Notes Bibliography Index

“In The Middle Ages in Children’s Literature, Clare Bradford analyzes how the Middle Ages is depicted in children’s literature … . the broad and impressive scope of her work shows the exciting ways that critical theory can help enrich the scholarship in children’s literature. … offer readers not only a world of enchantment, but also a way to confront contemporary social questions in a space distant from the present in the present past.” (Johanna Denzin, The Lion and the Unicorn, Vol. 40 (3), September, 2016)“With admirable economy, Bradford covers a great deal of theoretical ground, applying to children’s literature ideas about temporality, spatiality, and the monstrous, as well as concepts drawn from disability studies, animal studies, and humor theory. … Full of useful insights, the book will be of much more value to those interested in Contemporary critical theory than to readers who want to know about the Middle Ages in children’s literature.” (Rebecca Barnhouse, Children's Literature Association Quarterly, Vol. 42, (4),2014)