1. Introduction 2. Cultural Memory, the Historical Picture Book, and the Concept of the Heros Journey 3. British Historical Picture Books: Promoting Peace in Times of War 4. French Historical Picture Books: Reimagining the Horrors of the Battlefield 5. Australian Historical Picture Books: Commemorating A National Memory 6. Conclusion
This book is grounded in the belief that every nation had its own Great War, with childrens picture books being an important barometer of each countrys national approach.?This book?will be of interest to both students and researchers in the fields of children's literature, literary theory, history, cultural studies and education.
This book is grounded in the belief that every nation had its own Great War, and that childrens picture books are an important barometer of each countrys national approach.
To explore the depiction of the Great War in modern Australian, British, and French childrens picture books, where this historical event is reimagined in different ways as a futile conflict, as a painful victory, and as part of one countrys founding mythology, this book uses the concept of the heros journey as an underlying framework. It claims that this monomythic pattern, as developed by Joseph Campbell and modified by Christopher Vogler, not only informs all picture books selected for this project but can also be used to highlight the extent to which modern childrens picture book authors and illustrators conform to their respective nations cultural memory.
It further maintains that the specific historical context of the Great War in these childrens picture books can be used to identify a variant of the heros journey: the ordinary soldiers journey. This analysis of childrens picture books about the Great War through the lens of Campbells heros journey will be of interest to both students and researchers in the fields of childrens literatl“I
![Variations of the Hero's Journey in Contemporary British, French and Australian Picture Books about the Great War: Reimagining the Horrors of the Past [Hardcover]](/itemImage/2/9/7/1/2_7152572.jpg "Variations of the Hero's Journey in Contemporary British, French and Australian Picture Books about the Great War: Reimagining the Horrors of the Past [Hardcover]")