1st Edition

Irish Children's Literature and Culture New Perspectives on Contemporary Writing

Edited By Keith O'Sullivan, Valerie Coghlan Copyright 2011
    228 Pages
    by Routledge

    242 Pages
    by Routledge

    Irish Children’s Literature and Culture looks critically at Irish writing for children from the 1980s to the present, examining the work of many writers and illustrators and engaging with major genres, forms, and issues, including the gothic, the speculative, picturebooks, ethnicity, and globalization. It contextualizes modern Irish children’s literature in relation to Irish mythology and earlier writings, as well as in relation to Irish writing for adults, thereby demonstrating the complexity of this fascinating area.

    What constitutes a "national literature" is rarely straightforward, and it is especially complex when discussing writing for young people in an Irish context. Until recently, there was only a slight body of work that could be classified as "Irish children’s literature" in comparison with Ireland’s contribution to adult literature in the twentieth century. The contributors to the volume examine a range of texts in relation to contemporary literary and cultural theory, and children’s literature internationally, raising provocative questions about the future of the topic. Irish Children’s Literature and Culture is essential reading for those interested in Irish literature, culture, sociology, childhood, and children’s literature.

    Valerie Coghlan, Church of Ireland College of Education, Dublin, is a librarian and lecturer. She is a former co-editor of Bookbird: An International Journal of Children's Literature. She has published widely on Irish children's literature and co-edited several books on the topic. She is a former board member of the IRSCL, and a founder member of the Irish Society for the Study of Children's Literature, Children's Books Ireland, and IBBY Ireland.

    Keith O’Sullivan lectures in English at the Church of Ireland College of Education, Dublin. He is a founder member of the Irish Society for the Study of Children’s Literature, a former member of the board of directors of Children’s Books Ireland, and past chair of the Children’s Books Ireland/Bisto Book of the Year Awards. He has published on the works of Philip Pullman and Emily Brontë.


    Introduction  1. Picture Books that Transcend Boundaries  Sandra Beckett  2. Belief and Unbelief: Inscriptions of Religion and Cultural Identity   Valerie Coghlan  3. Contemplating Otherness in Speculative Fiction   Patricia Kennon  4. Child’s Play: The Child and the Nation   Jarlath Kileen  5. Walking into the Night: Growing up with the Gothic  Anne Markey  6. ‘The past is gone anyway’: The importance of Memory and History  Sharon Murphy  7. Mythologizing the Present  Ciara Ní Bhroin  8. Location, Location, Location: The Significance of Place  Eilís Ní Dhuibne  9. Insularity and Internationalism: Between Local Production and the Global Marketplace  Emer O’Sullivan  10. Linguistic and Narratological Representations of Selfhood  Keith O’Sullivan  11. Family Amanda Piesse  12. Meanings and Means: Children's Poetry  Mary Shine Thompson  13. The Irish Call of Aladdin: "New Tales for Old!"  Máire Uí Mhaicín  14. Coming of Age and Youth Culture  Pádraic Whyte

    Biography

    Valerie Coghlan is Librarian at Church of Ireland College of Education, Dublin, Ireland. Keith O'Sullivan is Lecturer in English at Church of Ireland College of Education, Dublin, Ireland.