Given the need for multiple representations of historically underrepresented voices in children's literature, this research study explored critical depictions of agency of Latinx youth within the Pura Belpré awarded texts from 1996 to 2021. The findings report a critical multicultural analysis of depictions of age, sex, socio-economic status,…

Despite increased attention toward children's nonfiction and informational texts in recent decades, there is still little research that investigates the ways in which various cultural identities are depicted in nonfiction children's books. Focusing specifically on the 143 winners and honor recipients of the Orbis Pictus Award for Outstanding…

This study analyzed 90 realistic novels written and published in the United States between the years 2000 and 2010 and featuring mixed race characters. The researchers examined specific textual features of these works of contemporary and historical fiction and employed Critical Race Theory to contextualize the books within paradigms about…

The Harry Potter series focuses upon the toilet as a site for heroic action and a threshold between worlds as well as a more traditional place for boys to be bullied and girls to weep. This article offers a Kristevan reading of the toilets as abject in Harry Potter, and shows how this concept helps us make sense of wider issues within the series,…

This paper examines six recent retellings of Robin Hood and concentrates on the representation of class, religion and gender in the texts. The question is asked: "what values do the texts implicitly or explicitly arm?" The idea that Robin Hood retellings are systematic of a socially and politically conservative ideology is interrogated by…

In this article, we examine a set of 26 children's books on HIV/AIDS published between 1989-1999 to identify the ways in which these texts construct HIV/AIDS and people living with HIV/AIDS. We explore how this marginalized group is depicted in these books, and how well-meaning teachers may in fact be reproducing dominant discourses about HIV/AIDS…

In the "His Dark Materials" trilogy, Pullman reworks the fall of humanity into an ascent and suggests that ascent into adulthood through sexual experience is the desired goal for children. Although this ascent is accompanied by a radical reconceptualization of life and death, Pullman fails to offer any genuinely new ideas of the world with respect…

In this article, the life and writings of Antonia Forest, who died in 2003, are considered. An attempt is made to put her books into their literary, cultural and religious contexts, and to examine possible reasons for the critical reception of her books during the last 30 years of the twentieth century; from neglect and even disapproval to…

This article examines the historical fantasy world created by Joan Aiken in the eleven volumes of her "Wolves of Willoughby Chase" series. In particular it looks at her subversion of historical reality by the creation of an alternative yet recognisable representation of our own world, using a wide range of events, and the remoulding of aspects of…

This essay identifies a genre of popular fiction for children and young adults, prevalent in the 1990s and continuing into the early twenty-first century, that incorporates computers and the internet, e-mails and chat rooms, into its plots. However, along with a focus on technology, this fiction frequently features the supernatural. So, too,…

This article provides a rationale for using literature in the classroom to explore conceptions of curriculum and teaching. We discuss a number of exemplars from children's and young adult fiction, both mainstream and less well known; offer a taxonomy for categorizing the range of visions of curriculum and teaching in the literature; and describe…

Mark Haddon's "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" was the crossover publishing sensation of 2003. It has been the subject of widespread critical and commercial acclaim and has won prestigious UK prizes including the Whitbread Book of the Year and the Guardian's Children's Fiction Prize. It is still enjoying considerable commercial…

Critics and teachers tend to pay attention to genre and ignore mode as an area of consideration. This study examines three novels for young readers that are comparable in terms of their entwining opposing modes (irony and romance, comedy and tragedy) as a successful crossover strategy for appeal to readers young and old. I share implications for…

This article examines the challenges that faced two storytellers when developing an oral retelling of Homer's "Iliad" for use with children aged 9-11. Drawing on evidence from two schools in a deprived area of London the discussion explores the extent to which the storytellers have been successful in creating a version of the story that…

Examines the use of imagery and poetic language in the two novels of Christobel Mattingly, an Australian writer of picture story books. Shows that Mattingly deals with sensitive issues of childhood and adolescence, such as moving to a foreign country, teenage sexuality, and death, in subtle and mature ways. (SKC)