Navigating Children’s Literature through Controversy

Global and Transnational Perspectives

Series: 

This collection focuses on the specific issue of controversy as a cross-sectional aspect of contemporary children’s and YA literature, in a spectrum stretching from national experiences, to explore the impact of specific historical, economic and social environments on the rise of controversies; to inter-national exchanges in which controversies are generated specifically by the interactions between cultures; to international contexts that deal with controversies relevant on a global scale. By adopting controversy as an adjustable lens for a joined consideration of literary themes, narrative or aesthetic solutions, translation choices, publishing and marketing decisions, and discursive practices, the volume establishes a diversified collection of chapters that offers new insight into functions of children’s and YA literature in contemporary culture.
Copyright Year:
2024
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Published
ISBN:
978-90-04-68329-7
Publication:
20 Sep 2023
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Published
ISBN:
978-90-04-68272-6
Publication:
06 Sep 2023
Cover Navigating Children’s Literature through Controversy

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Front Matter
Preliminary Material
Copyright Page
Notes on Contributors
Controversy and Children’s Literature: Introduction
Part 1 (G)local Controversies
Chapter 1 Controversy on the Children’s Book Market in Poland and Its Cultural and Social Background
Chapter 2 Coming Out: LGBTQ+ Topics and Polish Young Adult Literature
Chapter 3 Being Controversial in Scandinavia: An Iconotextual Analysis of Selected Norwegian and Danish Picturebooks
Chapter 4 Political vs. Personal: Gender-Role Formation in the Works of Ukrainian Female Children’s Writers in the 1930s
Chapter 5 The Controversial Truth: Postmemory and the Great Terror in Yulia Yakovleva’s The Raven’s Children and Eugene Yelchin’s Breaking Stalin’s Nose
Chapter 6 Controversies over the Holocaust and the Greek Civil War: Painful Memories in Greek Children’s Books
Chapter 7 Trauma Representation and Aestheticization in North American Young Adult Holocaust Literature
Part 2 Transcultural Controversies
Chapter 8 Boys’ Friendship or Something More? Re-Examining Janusz Korczak’s King Matt the First and Its English Translations
Chapter 9 Annotated Editions as a Misappropriation of the Author’s Voice and of Children’s Reading: Some Polish Editions of Fairy Tales by Charles Perrault
Chapter 10 Beguiling Bygones and Relapses into Barbarism: Censoring Old Children’s Literature in the Netherlands
Chapter 11 Controversies of Authentic Adolescent Realism in Isabel Quintero’s Gabi, a Girl in Pieces (2014) and Louise O’Neill’s Asking For It (2015)
Chapter 12 “I’m Not a Teapot”: The Controversy of (Post)Humanity in Selected Novels by Neal Shusterman
Chapter 13 “Behind the Bars, No World”: Brecht Evens’ Panther as an Ironic Response to Children’s Literature
Chapter 14 Two-Dad Families in Children’s Nonfiction Picturebooks
Chapter 15 The Children’s Literature Scholar as a Two-Headed Creature (Lofting and Damrosch)
Back Matter
Index of Persons
Elżbieta Jamróz-Stolarska is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Information and Media Studies (University of Wrocław). She has published widely on the children’s book market, design and illustration. Her major recent work is Serie literackie dla dzieci i młodzieży w Polsce 1945–1989. Produkcja wydawnicza i ukształtowanie edytorskie [Children’s and Young Adults’ Literature Series in Poland 1945-1989: Book Market and Design] (Warszawa, 2014).

Mateusz Świetlicki is an Assistant Professor at the University of Wrocław’s Institute of English Studies and Director of the Center for Young People’s Literature and Culture. His most recent book, Next-Generation Memory and Ukrainian Canadian Children’s Historical Fiction: The Seeds of Memory (Routledge, 2023), examines the transnational entanglements of Canada and Ukraine.

Agata Zarzycka is an Associate Professor at the Institute of English Studies (University of Wrocław). She has recently published A Goth Reflection: Self-Fashioning and Popular Culture (Wrocław, 2019). Her research interests include literary studies focused on speculative fiction, gothic studies, game studies focused on video games and role-playing games, fan studies, subcultural and cultural studies.

The editors are co-founders and members of The Centre for Research on Children’s and Young Adult Literature at the University of Wrocław.
"The essays in this volume contain impactful, useful, and innovative new approaches to each of the different controversies covered. As a whole, these essays contribute to ongoing discussions in the field, and the essays will also serve individually as vector points for new conversations in the field."

- Roberta Seelinger Trites, Illinois State University
Notes on Contributors

Controversy and Children’s Literature: Introduction
 Agata Zarzycka, Mateusz Świetlicki and Elżbieta Jamróz-Stolarska

Part 1 (G)Local Controversies



1 Controversy on the Children’s Book Market in Poland and Its Cultural and Social Background
 Bożena Hojka and Elżbieta Jamróz-Stolarska

2 Coming Out: LGBTQ+ Topics and Polish Young Adult Literature
 Monika Woźniak

3 Being Controversial in Scandinavia: An Iconotextual Analysis of Selected Norwegian and Danish Picturebooks
 Hanna Dymel-Trzebiatowska

4 Political vs. Personal: Gender-Role Formation in the Works of Ukrainian Female Children’s Writers in the 1930s
 Snizhana Zhygun

5 The Controversial Truth: Postmemory and the Great Terror in Yulia Yakovleva’s The Raven’s Children and Eugene Yelchin’s Breaking Stalin’s Nose
 Sylwia Kamińska-Maciąg

6 Controversies over the Holocaust and the Greek Civil War: Painful Memories in Greek Children’s Books
 Meni Kanatsouli

7 Trauma Representation and Aestheticization in North American Young Adult Holocaust Literature
 Talia Crockett

Part 2 Transcultural Controversies



8 Boys’ Friendship or Something More? Re-Examining Janusz Korczak’s King Matt the First and Its English Translations
 Joanna Dybiec-Gajer

9 Annotated Editions as a Misappropriation of the Author’s Voice and of Children’s Reading: Some Polish Editions of Fairy Tales by Charles Perrault
 Barbara Kaczyńska

10 Beguiling Bygones and Relapses into Barbarism: Censoring Old Children’s Literature in the Netherlands
 Charlotte van Bergen

11 Controversies of Authentic Adolescent Realism in Isabel Quintero’s Gabi, a Girl in Pieces (2014) and Louise O’Neill’s Asking For It (2015)
 Jennifer Mooney

12 “I’m Not a Teapot”: The Controversy of (Post)Humanity in Selected Novels by Neal Shusrerman
 Anna Bugajska

13 “Behind the Bars, No World”: Brecht Evens’ Panther as an Ironic Response to Children’s Literature
 Katarzyna Smyczyńska

14 Two-Dad Families in Children’s Nonfiction Picturebooks
 Angela Yannicopoulou

15 The Children’s Literature Scholar as a Two-Headed Creature (Lofting and Damrosch)
 Anna Czabanowska-Wróbel

Index of Persons
The book is intended primarily for scholars of children’s literature and culture, including specialists in the fields of literary studies, education, and memory and gender studies. The book will have a broad appeal owing to its focus on transcultural glocal nature of controversy. It can be used as a secondary source in undergraduate and graduate courses on children’s literature and culture.
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