This article looks closely at a subset of books about literacy in and out of school by analyzing images of children learning and struggling to learn to read in realistic fiction. There are several books in which characters wish to learn to read, worry about being poor readers, and work hard to learn to read. These books raise important questions…

Concludes that the author's study of the once-popular but now largely forgotten periodical "The Youth's Companion" shows how children's literature can call forth in readers a powerful response--a personal, literary, critical and active response that is shaped by a text's purpose, promise, positioning of readers, and the enduring passion it…

Explores the relationship between literary theory and children's literature in teacher-education classrooms, positioning itself in the gap between books and children, texts and readers, and theory and practice in literature. Concludes by offering the author's experience as an example of the richness the use of literary theory brings to an…