Understanding Children's Literature

by Peter Hunt (Editor)

This book offers a systematic introduction to some of the essential concepts necessary for the study of childrens literature. Incorporating thirteen essays from the highly-acclaimed International Companion Encyclopedia of Children's Literature , the chapters guide the reader through the most relevant areas of criticism and theory and summarise their contexts and application. Bibliographies provide details of useful further information sources and a glossary explains the literary terms encountered in the book. This work is a useful and accessible guide for readers involved both in literature and education.

Genres: Nonfiction, Childrens, Criticism, Academia, Reference, Academic

200 pages, Paperback

First published March 12, 1998

About the author

Peter Hunt (born 1945) is a British scholar who is Professor Emeritus in Children's Literature at Cardiff University.

Hunt's books include works of criticism, novels, and stories for younger children. The Children's Literature courses that he ran at Cardiff were the first to treat children's literature as a subject of academic study in the UK. He has lectured on the subject at over 120 universities in 20 countries, from Finland to New Zealand; the International Society for the Fantastic in the Arts presented him with its Distinguished Scholarship Award in 1995, and 2003 he won the International Brothers Grimm Award for services to children's literature from the Institute for Children's Literature, Osaka.

He has edited or is editing the Oxford University Press World's Classics editions of Bevis, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and The Wind in the Willows. His books have been translated into Arabic, Chinese, Danish, Persian, Greek, Japanese, Korean, and Portuguese

Reviews

[Becky · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a basic overview of various ways of reading children's lit, with every chapter covering a different topic. There's some really interesting stuff in here, and some really boring stuff too. The best part might be the never-ending bibliographies, indicating hundreds of ways to go deeper into any given topic.
I think my two favourite chapters were the one on Bibliotherapy (Can Stories Heal?) and on children as critics.
Super good, worth the read. Peter Hunt, the editor, is widely known in the field, and the first chapter was written by my old professor (and is one of the more difficult chapters to get through).

[Natalie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some of these chapters were insufferably dull. I hate when contributors to text books feel compelled to use as much jargon and communicate in as erudite a way as possible.

[Emma]

Every student of children's literature should start by reading this text

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really great volume for seeing how you can apply different modes of analysis and schools of thought and theory to the study of children's literature. A really helpful introduction to my grad school career.