Contributing to the growing debates on children and media worldwide, Little Friends explores the pervasive presence of film culture in the lives of children in China. The book also introduces the work of the little-known Children's Film Studio and the Film Course, a reform-period attempt by Chinese filmmakers and policy leaders to control the media to which schoolchildren were exposed. Stephanie Donald uses expansive firsthand interviews, children's drawings, and film history to tell a compelling cinematic story before it is forgotten in the onrush of globalized culture. She is especially careful to bring in the interests and experiences of children themselves. The book follows the trajectory of contemporary media analysis in privileging the use as well as the content of media. The author's "turn" to the end-user enriches her discussion of media literacy, cultural competencies, and--perhaps especially in the Chinese case--consideration of the desired uses of media in relation to state priorities and social expectations. This is a trend that belongs to an era of digital experimentation and commercial development; in interactive television, streamed news and entertainment, and the multiple, unintended uses of Internet and mobile technologies. Notwithstanding the contemporary context, Donald's arguments consider a range of media deployment that, although not especially new in technological terms, offer new insights into a formalized Chinese media system for children. Scholars and students of Asian and children's film and education will find this unique work a fascinating window into Chinese culture and society and a provocative exploration of media culture.

Stories for Gramp's Little Friends, is a book of love containing twenty-six short stories. They were written for and read to his grandchildren, which gave enjoyment to him and them. Some of the ideas for the stories came from the different subjects of Mrs. Finch's kindergarten class in rural Arkansas. The author's stories promote good manners, love, laughter, sharing, safety, and especially friendship. The stories are enjoyable reading for all ages.

The texts included in this anthology illustrate the wide range of possibilities that abolitionist writings offered to American children during the first half of the nineteenth century. Composing their works under the wings of the antislavery movement, authors responded to the unequal and controversial development of abolitionist politics during the decades that led up to the outbreak of the Civil War. These writers struggled to teach children “to feel right,” and attempted to instruct them to actively respond to the injustice of the slavery system as rendered visible by a harrowing visual archive of suffering bodies compiled by both English and American antislavery promoters. Reading was equated with knowledge and knowledge was equated with moral responsibility, and therefore reading about “the abominations of slavery” became an act of emotional personal transformation. Children were thus turned into powerful agents of political change and potential activists to spread the abolitionist message. Invited to comply with a higher law that entailed the breaking of their nation’s edicts, they were morally rewarded by the Christian God and approvingly applauded by their elders for their violation of these same American regulations. These texts enclosed immeasurable value for young nineteenth-century Americans to fulfill a more democratic and egalitarian role in their future. Undoubtedly, abolitionist writings for children took away American children’s innocence and transformed them into juvenile abolitionists and empowered compassionate citizens.

Stories and sketches for children.

Reproduction of the original: Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends by Fanny Fern