Two of the most trusted reviewers in the field join with top authors, illustrators, and critics in a definitive guide to choosing books for children—and nurturing their love of reading. A FAMILY OF READERS is the definitive resource for parents interested in enriching the reading lives of their children. It’s divided into four sections: 1. Reading to Them: Choosing and sharing board books and picture books with babies and very young children. 2. Reading with Them: Launching the new reader with easy readers and chapter books. 3. Reading on Their Own: Exploring what children read—and how they read—by genre and gender. 4. Leaving Them Alone: Respecting the reading privacy of the young adult. Roger Sutton knows how and why children read. He must, as the editor in chief of THE HORN BOOK, which since 1924 has been America’s best source for reviews of books for young readers. But for many parents, selecting books for their children can make them feel lost. Now, in this essential resource, Roger Sutton and Martha V. Parravano, executive editor at the magazine, offer thoughtful essays that consider how books are read to (and then by) young people. They invite such leading authors and artists as Maurice Sendak, Katherine Paterson, Margaret Mahy, and Jon Scieszka, as well as a selection of top critics, to add their voices about the genres they know best. The result is an indispensable readers’ companion to everything from wordless board books to the most complex and daring young adult novels.

This volume is a guide to children's and young adult literature.

Two of the most trusted reviewers in the field join with top authors, illustrators, and critics in a definitive guide to choosing books for children—and nurturing their love of reading. A FAMILY OF READERS is the definitive resource for parents interested in enriching the reading lives of their children. It’s divided into four sections: 1. Reading to Them: Choosing and sharing board books and picture books with babies and very young children. 2. Reading with Them: Launching the new reader with easy readers and chapter books. 3. Reading on Their Own: Exploring what children read—and how they read—by genre and gender. 4. Leaving Them Alone: Respecting the reading privacy of the young adult. Roger Sutton knows how and why children read. He must, as the editor in chief of THE HORN BOOK, which since 1924 has been America’s best source for reviews of books for young readers. But for many parents, selecting books for their children can make them feel lost. Now, in this essential resource, Roger Sutton and Martha V. Parravano, executive editor at the magazine, offer thoughtful essays that consider how books are read to (and then by) young people. They invite such leading authors and artists as Maurice Sendak, Katherine Paterson, Margaret Mahy, and Jon Scieszka, as well as a selection of top critics, to add their voices about the genres they know best. The result is an indispensable readers’ companion to everything from wordless board books to the most complex and daring young adult novels.

Living or dead, present or absent, sadly dysfunctional or merrily adequate, the figure of the mother bears enormous freight across a child’s emotional and intellectual life. Given the vital role literary mothers play in books for young readers, it is remarkable how little scholarly attention has been paid to the representation of mothers outside of fairy tales and beyond studies of gender stereotypes. This collection of thirteen essays begins to fill a critical gap by bringing together a range of theoretical perspectives by a rich mix of senior scholars and new voices. Following an introduction in which the coeditors describe key trends in interdisciplinary scholarship, the book’s first section focuses on the pedagogical roots of maternal influence in early children’s literature. The next section explores the shifting cultural perspectives and subjectivities of the twentieth century. The third section examines the interplay of fantasy, reality, and the ethical dimensions of literary mothers. The collection ends with readings of postfeminist motherhood, from contemporary realism to dystopian fantasy. The range of critical approaches in this volume will provide multiple inroads for scholars to investigate richer readings of mothers in children’s and young adult literature.

This landmark volume is the first to bring together leading scholarship on children’s and young adult literature from three intersecting disciplines: Education, English, and Library and Information Science. Distinguished by its multidisciplinary approach, it describes and analyzes the different aspects of literary reading, texts, and contexts to illuminate how the book is transformed within and across different academic figurations of reading and interpreting children’s literature. Part one considers perspectives on readers and reading literature in home, school, library, and community settings. Part two introduces analytic frames for studying young adult novels, picturebooks, indigenous literature, graphic novels, and other genres. Chapters include commentary on literary experiences and creative production from renowned authors and illustrators. Part three focuses on the social contexts of literary study, with chapters on censorship, awards, marketing, and literary museums. The singular contribution of this Handbook is to lay the groundwork for colleagues across disciplines to redraw the map of their separately figured worlds, thus to enlarge the scope of scholarship and dialogue as well as push ahead into uncharted territory.

"Family in Children's and Young Adult Literature is a comprehensive study of the family in Anglophone children's and Young Adult literature from the early nineteenth century to the present day. Written by intellectual leaders in the field from the UK, the Americas, Europe, and Australia, this collection of essays explores the significance of the family and of familial and quasi-familial relationships in texts by a wide range of authors, including the Grimms, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Rudyard Kipling, Enid Blyton, Judy Blume, Jaqueline Wilson, Malorie Blackman, Melvin Burgess, J.K. Rowling, Neil Gaiman, and others. Author-based and critical survey essays explore evolving depictions of LGBTQIA+ and BAME families; migrant and refugee narratives; the popular tropes of the orphan protagonist and the wicked stepmother; sibling and intergenerational familial relationships; fathers and fatherhood; the anthropomorphic animal and surrogate family; and the fractured family in paranormal and dystopian YA literature. The breadth of essays in Family in Children's and Young Adult Literature encourages readers to think beyond the outdated but culturally privileged 'nuclear family', and is a vital resource for students, academics, educators, and practitioners"--

This important study affirms that Latinx children and young adults are uniquely positioned to change the world. Using Gloria Anzaldúa’s theories of conocimiento as a critical lens, the authors examine several literary works including Side by Side / Lado a lado; They Call Me Güero; Land of the Cranes; Efrén Divided; and Gabi, a Girl in Pieces. Using these texts and others, Montaño and Postma-Montaño demonstrate how Latinx literature for young readers reveals the oppressions that affect the everyday lives of Latinx youth in order to destabilize the racist notions that inform them. Whether it is injustices in the agricultural fields, weaponization of deportation and deportability, or forms of exclusion based on gender, ethnicity, and race, the books in this study counter by imagining and then participating in social-justice activism that seeks to transform the world. Ultimately the lessons shared in these books will allow Latinx young people to lead us into a future where equity and belonging are as endemic as they currently are rare.