A thoughtful look into the lives of our greatest children's authors.

Mellem 1865 og 1930 skabte de fem forfattere på baggrund af deres egen frustration og længsel efter barndommens uskyld en børnelitterær guldalder

Re-inventing/Re-presenting Identities in a Global World is a collection of twelve selected essays which address the concepts of cultural identity formation and enactment, immigration, diaspora and repatriation, and gender politics within a globalized context. With the peripheral having now become the center of contemporary culture, this volume examines cultural and literary diversities that have emerged from the reciprocal traffic of ideas and influences between cultures, politics, aesthetics and disciplines, with an emphasis on cultural identity as a site of crisis and fragmentation. Written in an accessible way, this volume addresses several audiences, from postgraduate researchers and scholars in the fields of Anglo-American and cross-cultural studies, women’s studies, minority and ethnic literature studies, to scholars, students and specialists of American, cross-Atlantic and even global studies. Because of the numerous theoretical concerns which underpin this work and its interdisciplinary approach, the publication is also aimed at researchers and scholars in the fields of trans-atlantic studies and cultural geography, as well as the general reader who is interested in globality and cultural identity.

Between 1865 and 1930, five writers who could not grow up transformed their longing for childhood into a literary revolution. Lewis Carroll, Edward Lear, J. M. Barrie, Kenneth Grahame, and A. A. Milne stand at the center of a golden age of Victorian and early twentieth-century children's literature. From the vibrantly imagined stories of Alice in Wonderland to the enchanted, magical worlds of Peter Pan and Winnie-the-Pooh, these five writers made the realms of fantasy they envisioned an enduring part of our everyday culture. We return to these classics again and again, for enjoyment as children and for the consolation and humor they offer adults. In Inventing Wonderland, Jackie Wullschlager explores the lives behind the fantasies of these remarkable writers as well as the cultural and social forces which helped shape their visions. As Wullschlager shows, each writer was not only childlike, but also born into a society which made a cult of childhood. In another age, their interests might have made them minor talents, but in Victorian and Edwardian England, they were mainstream writers in touch with the mood of a nation, working with the unconscious force of a whole society behind them. In this captivating, richly illustrated multiple biography, Jackie Wullschlager draws on the letters, memoirs, and diaries of these five writers and reveals how their fixations with childhood had much to do with adult fears, self-doubts, and nostalgia in a changing society.

Aims to invigorate the field of personality psychology by challenging the contemporary academic view that individuals are best studied as carriers of traits. The theory is then applied to an array of well-known and obscure individuals with ascensionistic inclinations, including Peter Pan.

The nature of childhood, the consideration of whether a certain age denotes innocence or not, and the desire to teach good citizenship to our children are all issues commonly discussed by today's media. This book brings together a variety of perspectives on the study of childhood: how this has been treated historically and how such a concept is developing as we move into the next century. The book is divided into five main sections: * part one sets the scene and provides the reader with an overview of attitudes towards childhood. * part two surveys the contribution of literature from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries * part three examines educational issues such as childrens' play, language acquisition and spiritual development * part four looks at the representation of children in film, television and other mass media * part five offers further help for study and research This book draws on a number of academic disciplines including education, literature, theology, language studies and history. It will be of particular use to those on Childhood studies courses and all those studying for a teacher qualification. Teachers of children aged between 4-12 years old will find its contribution to their continuing professional development extremely helpful.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is an 1865 English children's novel by Lewis Carroll, a mathematics don at the University of Oxford. It details the story of a girl named Alice who falls through a rabbit hole into a fantasy world of anthropomorphic creatures. It is seen as an example of the literary nonsense genre. The artist John Tenniel provided 42 wood-engraved illustrations for the book.It received positive reviews upon release and is now one of the best-known works of Victorian literature; its narrative, structure, characters and imagery have had a widespread influence on popular culture and literature, especially in the fantasy genre. It is credited as helping end an era of didacticism in children's literature, inaugurating an era in which writing for children aimed to "delight or entertain". The tale plays with logic, giving the story lasting popularity with adults as well as with children. The titular character Alice shares her name with Alice Liddell, a girl Carroll knewscholars disagree about the extent to which the character was based upon her.

Study of nostalgic representations of the maternal, the home, and childhood in the literature and photographs of early-20th-century artists.

The twentieth century was, by any reckoning, the age of the child in America. Today, we pay homage at the altar of childhood, heaping endless goods on the young, reveling in memories of a more innocent time, and finding solace in the softly backlit memories of our earliest years. We are, the proclamation goes, just big kids at heart. And, accordingly, we delight in prolonging and inflating the childhood experiences of our offspring. In images of the naughty but nice Buster Brown and the coquettish but sweet Shirley Temple, Americans at mid-century offered up a fantastic world of treats, toys, and stories, creating a new image of the child as "cute." Holidays such as Christmas and Halloween became blockbuster affairs, vehicles to fuel the bedazzled and wondrous innocence of the adorable child. All this, Gary Cross illustrates, reflected the preoccupations of a more gentle and affluent culture, but it also served to liberate adults from their rational and often tedious worlds of work and responsibility. But trouble soon entered paradise. The "cute" turned into "cool" as children, following their parental example, embraced the gift of fantasy and unrestrained desire to rebel against the saccharine excesses of wondrous innocence in deliberate pursuit of the anti-cute. Movies, comic books, and video games beckoned to children with the allures of an often violent, sexualized, and increasingly harsh worldview. Unwitting and resistant accomplices to this commercial transformation of childhood, adults sought-over and over again, in repeated and predictable cycles-to rein in these threats in a largely futile jeremiad to preserve the old order. Thus, the cute child-deliberately manufactured and cultivated--has ironically fostered a profoundly troubled ambivalence toward youth and child rearing today. Expertly weaving his way through the cultural artifacts, commercial currents, and parenting anxieties of the previous century, Gary Cross offers a vibrant and entirely fresh portrait of the forces that have defined American childhood.

Literature Suppressed on Social Grounds, Revised Edition discusses writings that have been banned over the centuries because they offended or merely ignored official truths; challenged widely held assumptions; or contained ideas or language unacceptable to a state, religious institution, or private moral watchdog. The entries new to this edition include the Captain Underpants series, We All Fall Down by Robert Cormier, and Jake and Honeybunch Go to Heaven by Margaret Zemach. Also included are updates to the censorship histories of such books as To Kill a Mockingbird and Of Mice and Men.