Global Perspectives on Death in Children}}}s Literature [Hardcover]

This volume visits death in childrens literature from around the world, making a substantial contribution to the dialogue between the expanding fields of Childhood Studies, Childrens Literature, and Death Studies. Considering both textual and pictorial representations of death, contributors focus on the topic of death in childrens literature as a physical reality, a philosophical concept, a psychologically challenging adjustment, and/or a social construct. Essays covering literature from the US, Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Canada, the UK, Sweden, Germany, Poland, Bulgaria, Brazil, Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union, India, and Iran display a diverse range of theoretical and cultural perspectives. Carefully organized sections interrogate how classic texts have been adapted for the twenty-first century, how death has been politicized, ritualized, or metaphorized, and visual strategies for representing death, and how death has been represented within the context of play. Asking how different cultures present the concept of death to children, this volume is the first to bring together a global range of perspective on death in childrens literature and will be a valuable contribution to an array of disciplines.

Introduction: Flying Kites and Other Life-Death Matters Lesley D. Clement  Part 1: Adapting Death for Changing Contexts  1.Thus did hearth-companions grieve their lords fall: Death, Mourning, and the Childrens Beowulf Daniel Pinti  2. Loyalty, Honor, and Death in Rick Riordans Olympus Series Ginger Stelle  3. A Deathly Underworld: Bulgarian Literature for Children of the Early Twentieth Century Margarita Georgieva  Part 2: Ritualizing Death and Life after Death  4. Holy Death: Constructions of Martyrdom in Persian Childrens Literature on the Eight-Year War between Iraq and lÃ