What do Paddington Bear, Rupert Bear, and Winnie the Pooh have in common, besides their ursine roots? They lived in real places, as well as in the imaginations of countless generations. Those places still exist. And inveterate globetrotter Mark West has been to them all. Children's Literature Tour of Great Britain provides detailed information on 49 important sites with a strong connection to children's literature. Each chapter begins with background information about the author (or, in the cases of King Arthur and Robin Hood, the character), in particular his or her writings for children. West offers tantalizing tidbits about birthplaces, memorials, landscapes, and gift shops, and concludes with complete visitor information for would-be literary pilgrims. Photographs, most of which were taken by West, should satisfy even the most demanding armchair traveler. Many of the sites on West's Tour are geared to children. Some are clearly intended for adults. All will add depth and delight to your next excursion into the fantastic (and fascinating) world of British children's literature.

The success of Disneyland as the world's first permanent, commercially viable theme park sparked the creation of a number of other parks throughout the world, from Florida to Japan, France, and Hong Kong. But the impact of Disneyland is not confined to the theme park arena. These essays explore a far-reaching ideology. Among the topics are Disney's role in the creation of children's architecture; Frontierland as an allegorical map of the American West; the "cultural invasion of France" in Disneyland Paris; the politics of nostalgia; and "hyperurbanity" in the town of Celebration, Florida. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.

The astonishing success of J.K. Rowling and other contemporary children's authors has demonstrated how passionately children can commit to the books they love. But this kind of devotion is not new. This timely volume takes up the challenge of assessing the complex interplay of forces that have created the popularity of children's books both today and in the past. The essays collected here ask about the meanings and values that have been ascribed to the term 'popular'. They consider whether popularity can be imposed, or if it must always emerge from children's preferences. And they investigate how the Harry Potter phenomenon fits into a repeated cycle of success and decline within the publishing industry. Whether examining eighteenth-century chapbooks, fairy tales, science schoolbooks, Victorian adventures, waif novels or school stories, these essays show how historical and publishing contexts are vital in determining which books will succeed and which will fail, which bestsellers will endure and which will fade quickly into obscurity. As they considering the fiction of Angela Brazil, Enid Blyton, Roald Dahl and J.K. Rowling, the contributors carefully analyse how authorial talent and cultural contexts combine, in often unpredictable ways, to generate - and sometimes even sustain - literary success.

The 'golden age' of children's literature in the late 19th and early 20th century coincided with a boom in the production and trade of commodities. The first book-length study to situate children's literature within the consumer culture of this period, British Children's Literature and Material Culture explores the intersection of children's books, consumerism and the representation of commodities within British children's literature. In tracing the role of objects in key texts from the turn of the century, Jane Suzanne Carroll uncovers the connections between these fictional objects and the real objects that child consumers bought, used, cherished, broke, and threw away. Beginning with the Great Exhibition of 1851, this book takes stock of the changing attitudes towards consumer culture – a movement from celebration to suspicion – to demonstrate that children's literature was a key consumer product, one that influenced young people's views of and relationships with other kinds of commodities. Drawing on a wide spectrum of well-known and less familiar texts from Britain, this book examines works from Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There and E. Nesbit's Five Children & It to Christina Rossetti's Speaking Likenesses and Mary Louisa Molesworth's The Cuckoo Clock. Placing children's fiction alongside historical documents, shop catalogues, lost property records, and advertisements, Carroll provides fresh critical insight into children's relationships with material culture and reveals that even the most fantastic texts had roots in the ordinary, everyday things.

Lucy Pearson’s lively and engaging book examines British children’s literature during the period widely regarded as a ’second golden age’. Drawing extensively on archival material, Pearson investigates the practical and ideological factors that shaped ideas of ’good’ children’s literature in Britain, with particular attention to children’s book publishing. Pearson begins with a critical overview of the discourse surrounding children’s literature during the 1960s and 1970s, summarizing the main critical debates in the context of the broader social conversation that took place around children and childhood. The contributions of publishing houses, large and small, to changing ideas about children’s literature become apparent as Pearson explores the careers of two enormously influential children’s editors: Kaye Webb of Puffin Books and Aidan Chambers of Topliner Macmillan. Brilliant as an innovator of highly successful marketing strategies, Webb played a key role in defining what were, in her words, ’the best in children’s books’, while Chambers’ work as an editor and critic illustrates the pioneering nature of children's publishing during this period. Pearson shows that social investment was a central factor in the formation of this golden age, and identifies its legacies in the modern publishing industry, both positive and negative.

For more than 250 years, English children’s literature has transmitted values to the next generation. The stories convey to children what they should identify with and aspire to, even as notions of “goodness” change over time. Through reading, children absorb an ethos of Englishness that grounds personal identity and underpins national consciousness. Such authors as Lewis Carroll, J. R. R. Tolkien, and J. K. Rowling have entertained, motivated, confronted social wrongs, and transmitted cultural mores in their works—functions previously associated with folklore. Their stories form a new folklore tradition that provides social glue and supports a love of England and English values. In Children’s Literature and British Identity: Imagining a People and a Nation, Rebecca Knuth follows the development of the genre, focusing on how stories inspire children to adhere to the morals of society. This book examines how this tradition came to fruition, exploring the works of several authors, including: Robert Baden-Powell Robert Ballantyne J. M. Barrie Enid Blyton Angela Brazil Frances Hodgson Burnett Randolph Caldecott Lewis Carroll Roald Dahl Daniel Defoe Charles Dickens Maria Edgeworth Kenneth Grahame Kate Greenaway G. A. Henty Thomas Hughes Charles Kingsley Rudyard Kipling C.S. Lewis A. A. Milne Hannah More E. Nesbit John Newbery George Orwell Beatrix Potter Arthur Ransome Frank Richards J. K. Rowling Anna Sewell Robert Louis Stevenson J. R. R. Tolkien P. L. Travers Sarah Trimmer Charlotte Yonge Evaluating the connection between children’s literature and the dissemination and formation of identity, this book will appeal to both general readers and academics who are interested in librarianship, English culture, and children’s literature.

Perceptions of the Great War have changed significantly since its outbreak and children's authors have continually attempted to engage with those changes, explaining and interpreting the events of 1914-18 for young readers. British Children's Literature and the First World War examines the role novels, textbooks and story papers have played in shaping and reflecting understandings of the conflict throughout the 20th century. David Budgen focuses on representations of the conflict since its onset in 1914, ending with the centenary commemorations of 2014. From the works of Percy F. Westerman and Angela Brazil, to more recent tales by Michael Morpurgo and Pat Mills, Budgen traces developments of understanding and raises important questions about the presentation of history to the young. He considers such issues as the motivations of children's authors, and whether modern children's books about the past are necessarily more accurate than those written by their forebears. Why, for example, do modern writers tend to ignore the global aspects of the First World War? Did detailed narratives of battles written during the war really convey the truth of the conflict? Most importantly, he considers whether works aimed at children can ever achieve anything more than a partial and skewed response to such complex and tumultuous events.