Browsing by Subject "Children's Literature"

Now showing 1 - 9 of 9
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    Beyond Urbanization: (Un)sustainable Geographies and Young People's Literature
    (2021-05) Kleese, Nick
    The Anthropocene is an epoch of ecological destruction. It is also a conceptual apparatus that denotes the various systems that entail this destruction (Clifford, 2013). Of these systems, urbanization—as both a social system and cultural value—retains popular and scholarly focus as a welcomed geographical expression of a sustainable, global human society (Heldke, 2006). This attention masks the environmental and social extraction that occurs in rural geographies (Ching and Creed, 1997; Cervone, 2017), as well this destruction’s inequitable impacts within and across these geographies (Bullard, 2005; Martinez-Aller, 2014). Drawing on methodologies of Marxist cultural analysis (Williams, 1963), I explore the relationship between urbanization processes and the ways rural ecologies are represented in literature for young people. I supplement literary analysis with interview data with young rural readers, sociological data, and environmental data. With insights offered by Marxist ecology (Marx, 1894; Foster, 2000), postcolonial ecology (Guha, 2013; Whyte, 2017) and critical geography (Soja, 2010; Brenner, 2019), I argue that fictionalized representations of rurality in young people’s literature inadvertently distance readers from the ecological realities playing out in the geographies they purport to depict. Still, more recent works of literature for young people that depict rural characters engaging in ecological activism and solidarity may suggest an emergent, critical, geographically-attuned sensibility. Inspired by these works, I suggest that careful reflection on the geographical valences of the Anthropocene reveals possibilities for more plural, inclusive, and ecologically-attuned societies featuring youth immersion in and attention to rural places as sites worthy of their labor and joy.
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    Mainstream and Mexican American-Themed Picture Books and Students’ Responses to Them in a First-Grade Dual-Immersion Classroom
    (2018-11) Delbridge, Anne
    The education system in the United States continues to fail bilingual Mexican American students in many ways. To counteract the effects of a subtractive schooling experience (Valenzuela, 1999) for these students, teachers can support the development of literary identities of belonging (Fránquiz, Martínez-Roldán, & Mercado, 2011). The purpose of this study was to investigate the ways in which the texts students read may invite or discourage the development of positive literary identities by contributing to feelings of belonging or alienation. The study had two parts. In Part 1, content analysis was used to analyze a set of 18 award winning Mexican American-themed Spanish language children’s picture books and compare them to a similar number of common, mainstream read aloud texts along several dimensions, including characteristics of the main character, culturally-important themes, and cultural values. In Part 2, students in a dual immersion first grade classroom in California responded to three mainstream and three award winning Mexican American picture books. Data collected in the classroom included written responses and drawings, individual discussions, and surveys of children’s book preferences. Four English Home Language (EHL) students and four Spanish Home Language (SHL) Mexican-origin students also participated in picture walks and small group discussions. Findings for Part 1 indicate that the mainstream texts lacked diversity in terms of main characters’ physical, linguistic, familial, cultural, and socioeconomic backgrounds. In addition, the mainstream texts hardly ever provided access to culturally important Mexican American content themes such as family strength and community, and they reinforced the culturally incongruent value of individualism. Findings for Part 2 indicate that the cultural content of the texts affected students’ oral and written responses in terms of the students’ willingness or ability to make personal and cultural connections, their feelings of belonging in the stories, and their engagement during discussions and picture walks. Implications from this study are that continual exposure to mainstream books could easily lead minoritized students to disengage from literary tasks. In addition, the study highlights the importance of access to culturally relevant texts in the early elementary grades as a pathway towards the development of positive literary identities in school.
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    Ramabai Espinet
    (Voices from the Gaps, 2005) Huntington, Lane; Watlington, Chloe Heather; Haverstock, Sam
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    The Real World Represented": Identity Politics and Diverse Representation in Shakespeare and Young Adult Lit"
    (2021-06) Johnson, Melissa
    “The Real World Represented”: Identity Politics and Diverse Representation in Shakespeare and Young Adult Lit examines how YA authors of the twenty-first century use fan practices to explore identity and expand diverse representation in their adaptations of Shakespeare for adolescent raders. The first chapter of “The Real World Represented” examines novels and short stories that adapt Hamlet and Macbeth to feature adolescent female lead characters. Questions of masculine identity dominate both Hamlet and Macbeth, which are also both among the most frequently taught plays in high school English classes. Through female focused adaptations, YA authors provide their young readers the opportunity to experience and understand the events of each play from young, female perspectives, as well as affirm that these perspectives are just as valuable as those of male characters. My analysis of a variety of novels, including Caroline B Cooney’s Enter Three Witches (2007), Lisa Klein’s Ophelia (2006) and Lady Macbeth’s Daughter (2009), and Robin Talley’s As I Descended (2016) demonstrates the many ways YA authors respond to the problematic aspects of female representation within Shakespeare’s works and empower young female readers by including their voices in some of his most well-known and frequently encountered plays. The second chapter explores the element of romantic love in YA adaptations of Shakespeare. Several YA adaptations of Romeo and Juliet, such as Jenny Trout’s Such Sweet Sorrow (2014) and Melinda Taub’s Still Star-Crossed (2013) take inspiration from Shakespeare’s characterization of the young couple as “star-crossed” and present romantic love as a powerful and inevitable force for their young characters. Within the last few years, authors of these adaptations, including Rachel Caine (Prince of Shadows, 2014) and Barbara Dee (Star-Crossed, 2017) have used this idea of love to equate the romantic experiences of LGBTQ+ teens with those of their heterosexual peers in terms of legitimacy and importance. Romeo and Juliet holds a place of high regard in our cultural consciousness as a work that epitomizes romantic love, and adapting this play through the perspectives of LGBTQ+ characters sends the message that love is not dependent upon gender or sexual orientation, thus validating the relationships of teens who identify this way. The third chapter of “The Real World Represented” analyzes YA adaptations of Shakespeare that address the issue of race. Similarly to adaptations surveyed in previous chapters, Grace Tiffany’s (2005) novels, Ariel and The Turquoise Ring, McKelle George’s Speak Easy, Speak Love, and Cat Winterson’s 2016 novel The Steep and Thorny Way use several different approaches to retell Shakespeare’s The Tempest, The Merchant of Venice, Much Ado About Nothing, and Hamlet, respectively, from the points of view of racial or ethnic minority characters. These adaptations bring racial injustices to the forefront and include them in the many important struggles that shape human experience through their connection to Shakespeare. These Shakespearean works are, in turn, rejuvenated through their demonstrated relevance to multiple racial and ethnic identities and diversified to reflect our modern society as it actually exists. The final two chapters of my dissertation shift focus slightly onto the formats that encourage more active participation from young adult readers and audiences, including webcomics and social media sites that thrive on reader and user participation, “choose-your-own-adventure” style comic books that invite readers to select what happens next from multiple options throughout the book, and fanfiction, or retellings of Shakespeare’s works created by fans and shared for fun and community rather than profit. Chapter four examines sequential art adaptations of Shakespeare, including the comic book series Kill Shakespeare and No Holds Bard, which break from the realistic picture that scholars have given us of who Shakespeare was and present imaginative characterizations of him and the context in which he wrote his famous plays and poems. These series remove the rigid constructs often placed around how we think of Shakespeare and allow for young adult readers to expand their impressions of him and by extension, his works. This chapter also considers “choose-your-own-adventure” style comic books that invite readers to select what happens next from multiple options throughout the book, and the web comic Good Tickle Brain, which adapts Shakespeare’s plays in humorous and irreverent ways and serves to mitigate some of the intimidation young adults often feel when faced with reading and understanding Shakespeare. Chapter five engages with fanfiction, and the ways in which authors of fanfiction, many of them young adults, use the medium to shape Shakespeare to question and challenge aspects of his works that they find problematic and reflect their own needs, desires, and identities. Overall, these Shakespearean adaptations use forms of media outside of novels and short stories to open pathways to more creative interpretation of and even active engagement with Shakespeare’s works, providing a sense of empowerment through autonomy for young adults.
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    Review of El Coyotito Y La Viejita (Baby Coyote And The Old Woman) by Carmen Tafolla
    (Voices from the Gaps, 2005) McNally, Amy; Chadwick, Grace
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    Review of My Daughter, My Son, The Eagle, The Dove by Ana Castillo
    (Voices from the Gaps, 2005) McNally, Amy; Chadwick, Grace
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    Review of Mystery of the Dark Tower by Evelyn Coleman
    (Voices from the Gaps, 2005) Adams, Ebony
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    Review of Neela: Victory Song by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
    (Voices from the Gaps, 2005) Stone, Sarah