1st Edition

Fundamental Concepts of Children’s Literature Research Literary and Sociological Approaches

By Hans-Heino Ewers Copyright 2009
    196 Pages
    by Routledge

    196 Pages
    by Routledge

    In this book, Ewers provides students and professors with a new system of categorization for a differentiated description of children’s literature. In the early 1970s, Swedish children’s literature scholar Göte Kingberg worked to establish a system of scientific terminology for international use, but these terms are now somewhat antiquated. This book offers a much-needed update, systematically analyzing the field and articulating its key definitions, terms, and concepts.

    International in scope, this study touches on subjects including the distribution of primers and textbooks, the means by which children’s books are evaluated and classified, and the ways in which children’s literature can find an adult audience. Also discussed are the system of symbols, norms, concepts, and discourses that have evolved during the past two centuries, leading to an investigation of how authors and publishers have endeavored to make literature "appropriate" for children and of what it means to accommodate children’s needs, wishes, and values. Throughout, Ewers provides concrete examples and clear definitions of terms so that any scholar interested in children’s literature will find this book approachable, insightful, and one that crosses cultural boundaries.

    Series Editor’s Foreword

    Introduction

    Part I: Literary Communication with Children and Young People

    1. Children’s Literary Communication

    2. Different Forms of Children’s Literary Messages

    3. Children’s Literature as Literature for Mediators

    4. Children’s Literature as Twofold Communication

    5. Children’s Literature as Reading Material for Adults

    Part II: Children’s Literary Distribution and Evaluation Systems

    6. Children’s Literary Action Systems

    7. The Market for Children’s Books and Media

    8. Children’s Books and Media as an Action System in Public Libraries

    9. "School Reading" as a Selection and Distribution System

    10. The "children’s book" pedagogic action system

    11. The "children’s public literary forum" Action System

    12. Historical Change in Distribution and Evaluation Systems for Children’s Literature.

    13. Children’s Literary Polysystems and their Providers

    Part III: Semiotics of Children’s and Young Adult Literature

    14. Children’s Literary Symbol Systems

    15. Fundamental Children’s Literary Norms

    16. Children’s Literary Concepts

    17. Children’s Literary Discourse

    Part IV: Children’s Literature as Literature Suitable for Children and Young People

    18. Child Suitability: Accommodation and Assimilation

    19. Forms of Child Suitability: Forms of Accommodation

    20. Child Suitability as a Basis for Textual Analysis

    21. External and Internal Suitability

    Notes

    Index

    Biography

    Ewers is Professor of German Literature with a focus on Children's Literature at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University of Frankfurt/Main and Director of the "Institut für Jugendbuchforschung" (Institute for Children's Literature Research).