With thirty-four essays from prominent scholars in the field, this Companion surfaces the critical debates within children’s literature criticism as well as showing the various sides in practice. It provides an introduction to as well as an intervention in the field, offering rich new facets for established scholars and models for students and emerging scholars as they seek to enter and invigorate the debates with new ideas. Our view of literature comprises poetry, folklore, fiction, nonfiction, picturebooks, dramatic performances on stage and screen, and interactive and digital media; essays range from historical overviews to up-to-the-moment critical theory about books from all over the globe.

Karen Coats is Professor of Education and Director of the Centre for Research in Children’s Literature at the University of Cambridge. She is also Visiting Associate Professor in the Master of Arts in Children's Literature Program at Hollins University, and Professor Emerita at Illinois State University, where she taught children's and young adult literature for 21 years. She has published more than 40 articles and book chapters on various aspects of youth literature, and she has co-edited multiple works.

Deborah Stevenson, until her recent retirement, was Clinical Assistant Professor at the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she was editor of the Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books and, from 2011-2019, director of the Center for Children’s Books. She has taught children’s literature at Indiana University Northwest, Simmons College, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her articles have appeared in the Horn Book Magazine, The Lion and the Unicorn, and the Children’s Literature Association Quarterly, and she is a senior editor of the Oxford Encyclopedia of Children’s Literature.

Vivian Yenika-Agbaw was Professor of Education, Literature and Literacies, and African Studies at Pennsylvania State University. She has authored or co-edited several books, including Representing Africa in Children’s Literature: Old and New Ways of Seeing. She was the author and/or co-editor of numerous books including Representing Africa in Children's Literature: Old and New Ways of Seeing (Routledge), and multiple journal articles. She was co-editor of the Journal of Children's Literature, and she served on book award committees for Children’s Africana Book Award; The Golden Baobab Literary Prize; and the Notable Books for a Global Society; she also chaired the first equity and diversity committee of the International Research Society for Children’s Literature.

Notes on Contributors x

Introduction xvii
Karen Coats, Deborah Stevenson, and Vivian Yenika-Agbaw

Part I: Early Works 1

1 Juvenile Nonfiction before the Golden Age of Anglo-American Children's Literature 3
Ivy Linton Stabell

2 The Beginnings of Fiction for Children 14
Claudia Nelson

3 Folklore in Children's Literature 26
Debra Mitts-Smith

4 The Victorian Picturebook 39
Hannah Field

5 The Child-Centered Universe of Nineteenth-Century Children's Nonfiction 58
Elizabeth Massa Hoiem

Part II: Twentieth-Century Developments 71

6 Developments in Fiction for Children 73
Mary Jeanette Moran

7 Developments of Picturebooks 84
Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer

8 Walt Disney and the Fairy Tale 96
Paula T. Connolly

9 Stay Tuned: A Political History of Saturday Morning Cartoons 105
Peter C. Kunze

10 Live-Action Films for Children 118
Kathy Merlock Jackson

11 BreakBeat and the New Auditory Avant-garde -- for Children! (Or, That New-fangled Noise the Kids Are All Going On About) 129
Michael Heyman and Joseph T. Thomas, Jr.

12 Children's Literature of the Anglophone Caribbean 144
Sujin Huggins

Part III: Contemporary Trends and Texts 155

13 Children's Information Books: Initiatives and Trends 157
Elizabeth Bush

14 Contemporary Trends in Fiction for Children 168
Thaddeus Andracki

15 Contemporary Poetry for Children: Toward Diversity, Complexity, and Innovation 179
Rachel Conrad

16 Picturebook Futures 193
Evelyn Arizpe and Emma McGilp

17 Postmodern Fairy Tales 207
Cherie Allan

18 Theatre and Playwriting for Young Audiences 218
Nicole B. Adkins

19 The Portrayal of Girlhoods in Graphic Narratives for Children 232
Elizabeth Marshall

20 Playing Children's Literature: Games in and the Gamification of Books for Kids 242
Gretchen Papazian

21 Digital Children's Literature: Current Understandings and Future Directions 258
Dani Kachorsky

Part IV: Ways of Reading 271

22 Critical Multiculturalism and Children's Literature: Trends and Possibilities 273
Vivian Yenika-Agbaw

23 Cultural Diversity and Social Justice: Readings from the South 287
Macarena García González

24 Black Critical Theory in Children's Literary Analysis: Why It Matters 299
Roberta Price Gardner

25 Critical Discourse Studies and the Scholarship of Children's Literature 314
Rebecca Rogers and Doris Villarreal

26 Disability 330
Elizabeth A. Wheeler

27 Growing Up Together: Children's Literature and Women's Studies 341
Susan Larkin

28 Read, Write, Play, Review: Young Children's Connected Reading Communities 352
Marianne Martens

29 Posthumanism 364
Zoe Jaques

30 Narrative Theory and Children's Literature 376
Mike Cadden

31 Animal Studies 390
Rachel Falconer

32 Trauma Studies 403
Adrienne Kertzer

33 Censorship and Children's Literature 414
Emily J.M. Knox

34 The Commodification, "Diversification," and Walliams-fication of the British Children's Book Market 426
Melanie Ramdarshan Bold

Index 441