The Big Smallness: Niche Marketing, the American Culture Wars, and the New Childrens Literature [Hardcover]

Introduction.  Its A Small World After All: Specialty Subjects, Micro Markets, and Customized Culture  1. The Straight Dope: Its Just a Plant, Marijuana Use, and the Question of Prohibition Politics  2. Nip/Tuck Truth: My Beautiful Mommy, the Medicalization of Motherhood, and the Harmful Condition of Childhood Innocence  3. Good Things Come in Small Packages: Little Zizi, Schoolyard Bullying, and the Sexualization of Boys  4. Will Power: Maggie Goes on a Diet, the Fully Autonomous Child, and the Hazards of Unsupervised Adults  5. Boys Gone Wild: Me Tarzan, You Jane, the Crusade to Cure Prehomosexual Children, and the New Face of the Ex-Gay Movement in the United States  Epilogue. Change and Continuity: Niche-Market Picture Books and the Negotiation of Artistic Freedom, Iconoclastic Ideology, and Consumer Capitalism

This book is the first full-length critical study to explore the rapidly growing cadre of amateur-authored, independently-published, and niche-market picture books that have been released during the opening decades of the twenty-first century. Emerging from a powerful combination of the ease and affordability of desktop publishing software; the promotional, marketing, and distribution possibilities allowed by the Internet; and the tremendous national divisiveness over contentious socio-political issues, these texts embody a shift in how narratives for young people are being creatively conceived, materially constructed, and socially col3