Reflections of Change: Children's Literature Since 1945 [Hardcover]

Over the past fifty years, children's literature has freed itself of many traditional restrictions and become a field of exciting innovations in both form and content. The new status of children's literature has been accompanied by an unprecedented growth in research on children's literature internationally. This volume explores the many changes that have taken place in the past half-century in children's literature, showing how those changes reflect our rapidly-changing world and attempt to prepare children for the new millennium. Among the issues discussed are the shifting boundaries between children's literature and adult literature, postmodern trends, paradigm shifts, national literatures, and the reconceptualization of the past.SANDRA L. BECKETT is Professor of French at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario. She has served as the Vice-President of the International Research Society for Children's Literature (IRSCL). Her research focuses on contemporary French fiction for adults as well as children. She is the author of three books on Henri Bosco, and has recently completed a book entitledLes grands romanciers ?crivent pour les enfants, 1945-1995. She has also published numerous articles on the contemporary French novel, as well as French and French-Canadian children's literature.

Introduction: Reflections of Change
Theory and Children's Literature
Fear of Children's Literature: What's Left (or Right) After Theory? by Perry Nodelman
Is This the Promised End&? : Fin de Si?cle Mentality and Children's Literature by John Stephens
Ramona the Underestimated: The Everyday-Life Story in Children's Literature by Deborah Stevenson
Shifting Boundaries Between Children's and Adult Literature
The Disappearance of Children's Literature (or Children's Literature as Nostalgia) in the United States in the Late Twentieth Century by Jerry Griswold
Literature for All Ages? Literary Emancipation and the Borders of Children's Literlƒ6