Space and Place in Children's Literature, 1789 to the Present - Paperback

by Maria Sachiko Cecire (Author), Hannah Field (Author), Malini Roy (Author)

Focusing on questions of space and locale in children's literature, this collection explores how metaphorical and physical space can create landscapes of power, knowledge, and identity in texts from the early nineteenth century to the present. The collection is comprised of four sections that take up the space between children and adults, the representation of 'real world' places, fantasy travel and locales, and the physical space of the children's book-as-object. In their essays, the contributors analyze works from a range of sources and traditions by authors such as Sylvia Plath, Maria Edgeworth, Gloria Anzald a, Jenny Robson, C.S. Lewis, Elizabeth Knox, and Claude Ponti. While maintaining a focus on how location and spatiality aid in defining the child's relationship to the world, the essays also address themes of borders, displacement, diaspora, exile, fantasy, gender, history, home-leaving and homecoming, hybridity, mapping, and metatextuality. With an epilogue by Philip Pullman in which he discusses his own relationship to image and locale, this collection is also a valuable resource for understanding the work of this celebrated author of children's literature.

Author Biography

Maria Sachiko Cecire is Assistant Professor of Literature and Director of the Experimental Humanities concentration at Bard College, USA; Hannah Field is Lecturer in Victorian literature at the University of Sussex, UK; Kavita Mudan Finn is a visiting assistant professor at Southern New Hampshire University, USA; Malini Roy is a freelance writer and editor in Germany.