Representing Children in Chinese and U.S. Children's Literature [Hardcover]

Bringing together childrens literature scholars from China and the United States, this collection provides an introduction to the scope and goals of a field characterized by active but also distinctive scholarship in two countries with very different rhetorical traditions. The volumes five sections highlight the differences between and overlapping concerns of Chinese and American scholars, as they examine childrens literature with respect to cultural metaphors and motifs, historical movements, authorship, didacticism, important themes, and the current status of and future directions for literature and criticism. Wide-ranging and admirably ambitious in its encouragement of communication between scholars from two major nations, Representing Children in Chinese and U.S. Childrens Literature serves as a model for examining how and why childrens literature, more than many literary forms, circulates internationally.Bringing together childrens literature scholars from China and the United States, this collection provides an introduction to the scope and goals of a field characterized by active but also distinctive scholarship in two countries with very different rhetorical traditions. Wide-ranging and ambitious in its encouragement of communication between Chinese and American childrens literature scholars, this collection is a model for examining how and why childrens literature, more than many literary forms, circulates internationally.Claudia Nelson is Professor of English and Rebecca Morris is completing her PhD in English at Texas A&M University.Introduction, Claudia Nelson, Rebecca Morris; Section I Theorizing Childrens Literature: Journey as Metaphor and Motif; Chapter 1 Images of Growth: Embodied Metaphors in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Roberta Seelinger Trites; Chapter 2 Identifying the Motif in a Countrys Image of Children: Research on Childrens Issues in the Ming Dynasty, a Cultural Critique and Interpretation of Formulated Developmental Strlã(