Children's Popular Culture

With 1,200 biographical-critical entries and nearly 100 topical articles all written by experts in the field, this work covers 150 years of children's literature in many cultures.

The sixth edition "Essentials of Children's Literature" offers a concise, straightforward presentation of children's literature that engages students and motivates them to share literature with children. Written with a comprehensive, "facts-only" approach, this lucid resource offers an abundance of examples to illustrate how to use children's literature in the classroom.

Children's literature comes from a number of different sources-folklore (folk- and fairy tales), books originally for adults and subsequently adapted for children, and material authored specifically for them-and its audience ranges from infants through middle graders to young adults (readers from about 12 to 18 years old). Its forms include picturebooks, pop-up books, anthologies, novels, merchandising tie-ins, novelizations, and multimedia texts, and its genres include adventure stories, drama, science fiction, poetry, and information books. The Historical Dictionary of Children's Literature relates the history of children's literature through a chronology, an introductory essay, appendixes, a bibliography, and over 500 cross-referenced dictionary entries on authors, books, and genres. Some of the most legendary names in all of literature are covered in this important reference, including Hans Christian Anderson, L. Frank Baum, Lewis Carroll, Roald Dahl, Charles Dickens, C.S. Lewis, Beatrix Potter, J.K. Rowling, Robert Louis Stevenson, Mark Twain, J.R.R. Tolkien, Jules Verne, and E.B. White.

Now in new covers, The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature brings together all aspects of this appealing and wide-ranging subject. It's 2,000 entries range from the early romances and legends enjoyed by children (although not composed for them) to cartoons, fairy stories, comic strips, radio, and television. It includes works from Britain, the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, as well as works translated into English. The plots of major works are summarized, and full and fascinating details are included about authors, illustrators, fictional characters, genres, and important aspects of children's play and learning. Remember... * Thomas the Tank Engine *The Eagle *Emil and the Detectives * William * The Would-be-Goods * Charlie and the Chocalate Factory * The Secret Garden

For much of its history, children's literature has been overlooked or looked down on by scholars. But in recent years children's literature has assumed greater importance, as literary critics, psychologists, anthropologists, and historians have begun to discover what children and parents have known for centuries: that this is a literature of extraordinary richness, depth, and delight. The Encyclopedia captures and elucidates this richness in four volumes and 3,200 signed entries. It offers comprehensive coverage of children's literature, from medieval chapbooks of moral instruction for children to J. K. Rowling's immensely popular Harry Potter books. Unlike other references, the Encyclopedia not only documents but also interprets every work, major and minor, that has played a role in the history of children's literature in the world. General essays illuminate prominent trends, themes, genres, and the traditions of children's literature in many countries. In addition, the Encyclopedia provides biographies of important writers, as well as extensive coverage of illustrators with numerous examples of their work. Sociocultural developments such as the impact of toys, films, animation, the Internet, literacy, libraries and librarians, censorship, the multicultural expansion of the field, and other issues related to the appreciation and dissemination of children's literature are also addressed. While the Encyclopedia concentrates on the tradition known best by its readership, it also covers the international development of children's literature and offers an unprecedented treatment of works from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, India, Pakistan, African countries, and other nations. Its over 800 distinguished contributors come from around the world and include such renowned scholars and writers as Gillian Avery, Peter Hunt, Klaus Doderer, Hansa Heino Ewers, Jean Perrot, Denise Escarpit, Brian Alderson, and Betsy Gould Hearne. A-Z organization, accessible writing, plentiful illustrations, cross-references, bibliographies, a comprehensive index and a systematic outline make the Encyclopedia an invaluable and easy-to-use research reference.