This book explores the meaning of nation or nationalism in children's literature and how it constructs and represents different national experiences. The contributors discuss diverse aspects of children's literature and film from interdisciplinary and multicultural approaches, ranging from the short story and novel to science fiction and fantasy from a range of locations including Canada, Australia, Taiwan, Norway, America, Italy, Great Britain, Iceland, Africa, Japan, South Korea, India, Sweden and Greece. The emergence of modern nation-states can be seen as coinciding with the historical rise of children's literature, while stateless or diasporic nations have frequently formulated their national consciousness and experience through children's literature, both instructing children as future citizens and highlighting how ideas of childhood inform the discourses of nation and citizenship. Because nation and childhood are so intimately connected, it is crucial for critics and scholars to shed light on how children's literatures have constructed and represented historically different national experiences. At the same time, given the massive political and demographic changes in the world since the nineteenth century and the formation of nation states, it is also crucial to evaluate how the national has been challenged by changing national languages through globalization, international commerce, and the rise of English. This book discusses how the idea of childhood pervades the rhetoric of nation and citizenship, and how children and childhood are represented across the globe through literature and film.

About the Author
Christopher (Kit) Kelen is Associate Professor at the University of Macau. Bjoern Sundmark is Associate Professor at Malmoe University, Sweden.

Reviews

"The volume, which belongs to the publisher's long-standing series on cultural aspects of children's literature, includes topics that are often overlooked, that hold the reader's interest, and that have academic merit. Summing Up: Recommended." --C. E. Epple, Ursuline College, CHOICE

"... many scholars will find something useful in this volume, whether it be an explication of a critically ignored international children's text of a generative approach to the question of childhood citizenship." --Children's Literature Association Quarterly

"The volume, which belongs to the publisher's long-standing series on cultural aspects of children's literature, includes topics that are often overlooked, that hold the reader's interest, and that have academic merit. Summing Up: Recommended." --C. E. Epple, Ursuline College, CHOICE

"... many scholars will find something useful in this volume, whether it be an explication of a critically ignored international children's text of a generative approach to the question of childhood citizenship." --Children's Literature Association Quarterly

"The Nation in Children's Literature situates children's literature research within a productive indisciplinary field, drawing on historical and sociological models of nationhood." -- Nikola von Merveldt, Universite de Montreal, Canada, Bookbird, Vol 53, No. 1, 2015

Book Information
ISBN 9781138851597
Author Kit Kelen
Format Paperback
Page Count 282
Imprint Routledge
Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
Weight(grams) 385g