Seminar paper from the year 2006 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 1,0, University of Dusseldorf "Heinrich Heine", course: Hauptseminar "20th Century American Short Stories", language: English, abstract: Preface: Defining the topic In literature, just like in reality, gifted children may differ from each other in every aspect except for the very existence of a special talent or very high intelligence. Still, both in life and fiction, certain types can be traced. The terms child prodigy or wunderkind evoke a child which has developed outstanding skills in a certain area like chess (cp. the protagonist of Amy Tan′s short story "Rules of the Game" or Luzhin in Nabokov′s "Luzhin′s defence"; in reality, almost every grandmaster demonstrated exceptional skills in early childhood, the most prominent example being probably Capablanca), music (McCullers′ wunderkind in the short story of the same title does not live up to a comparison with Mozart, but is also considered a piano prodigy as a child), or any other art or science. In the study "Child Prodigies and Exceptionally Early Achievers", the psychologist John Radford practically equates the former with the latter, despite the conjunction in the title. The Wikipedia offers a similar definition: "A child prodigy, or simply prodigy, is someone who is a master of one or more skills or arts at an early age. One possible definition of a prodigy is a person who, by the age of 10, displays expert proficiency in a field usually only undertaken by adults"1. As this paper intends to study prodigious children in American literature, the best source for a definitions seems to be the leading American dictionary. However, Webster′s2 is extremely vague: "a person or thing of remarkable qualities or powers: an infant prodigy"is listed as a second possibility after an even more general reference to everything extraordinary. Merriam- Webster OnLine defines a prodigy in point 2b as "a highly talented child or youth"3. Un

Early Americans have long been considered "A People of the Book" Because the nickname was coined primarily to invoke close associations between Americans and the Bible, it is easy to overlook the central fact that it was a book-not a geographic location, a monarch, or even a shared language-that has served as a cornerstone in countless investigations into the formation and fragmentation of early American culture. Few books can lay claim to such powers of civilization-altering influence. Among those which can are sacred books, and for Americans principal among such books stands the Bible. This Handbook is designed to address a noticeable void in resources focused on analyzing the Bible in America in various historical moments and in relationship to specific institutions and cultural expressions. It takes seriously the fact that the Bible is both a physical object that has exercised considerable totemic power, as well as a text with a powerful intellectual design that has inspired everything from national religious and educational practices to a wide spectrum of artistic endeavors to our nation's politics and foreign policy. This Handbook brings together a number of established scholars, as well as younger scholars on the rise, to provide a scholarly overview--rich with bibliographic resources--to those interested in the Bible's role in American cultural formation.

An appealing guide to 33 neglected gems in children's literature by the author of A Reader's Delight.

In this lively discussion Kim Reynolds looks at what children's literature is, why it is interesting, how it contributes to culture, and how it is studied as literature. Providing examples from across history and various types of children's literature, she introduces the key debates, developments, and people involved.

Virtually every famous nineteenth-century writer (Harriet Beecher Stowe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson)— and many not so famous—wrote literature for children; many contributed regularly to children’s periodicals, and many entered the field of nature writing, responding to and forwarding the century’s huge social and cultural changes. Appreciating America’s unique natural wonders dovetailed with children’s growth as citizens, but children’s journals often exceeded a pedagogical purpose, intending also to entertain and delight. Though these volumes aimed at a relatively conservative and mostly white, middle-class, and affluent audience, some selections allowed both children and their parents room for imaginative escape from restrictive social norms. Covering a period that initially regarded children’s natural bodies as laboring resources, Stronger, Truer, Bolder traces the shifting pedagogical impulse surrounding nature and the environment through the transformations that included America’s nineteenth century emergence as an industrial power. Karen L. Kilcup shows how children’s literature mirrored those changes in various ways. In its earliest incarnations, it taught children (and their parents) facts about the natural world and about proper behavior vis-à-vis both human and nonhuman others. More significantly, as periodical writing for children advanced, this literature increasingly promoted children’s environmental agency and envisioned their potential influence on concerns ranging from animal rights and interspecies equity to conservation and environmental justice. Such understanding of and engagement with nature not only propelled children toward ethical adulthood but also formed a foundation for responsible American citizenship.

Since the beginning of the twentieth century, millions of anxious parents have turned to child-rearing manuals for reassurance. Instead, however, they have often found yet more cause for worry. In this rich social history, Ann Hulbert analyzes one hundred years of shifting trends in advice and discovers an ongoing battle between two main approaches: a “child-centered” focus on warmly encouraging development versus a sterner “parent-centered” emphasis on instilling discipline. She examines how pediatrics, psychology, and neuroscience have fueled the debates but failed to offer definitive answers. And she delves into the highly relevant and often turbulent personal lives of the popular advice-givers, from L. Emmett Holt and Arnold Gesell to Bruno Bettelheim and Benjamin Spock to the prominent (and ever conflicting) experts of today.

The world of the Marvel Comics superheroes began in 1961 thanks to talented creators such as Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, and others. Over time, their work became more than just a collection of comic book stories for kids; the characters, and the fictional universe they inhabited, evolved into a sophisticated series of inter-connected tales that would entertain millions of readers and movie-goers for decades. This is the story of how that unique universe was created: a realm of monsters, gods, aliens, robots, sorcerers, hyper-strong men and beguiling women - a world of fantasy filled with incredible wonders and unimaginable terrors. Step out of the ordinary world and into this Marvelous Mythology.