The last thirty years have witnessed one of the most fertile periods in the history of children's books: the flowering of imaginative illustration and writing, the Harry Potter phenomenon, the rise of young adult and crossover fiction, and books that tackle extraordinarily difficult subjects. The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature provides an indispensable and fascinating reference guide to the world of children's literature. Its 3,500 entries cover every genre from fairy tales to chapbooks; school stories to science fiction; comics to children's hymns. Originally published in 1983, the Companion has been comprehensively revised and updated by Daniel Hahn. Over 900 new entries bring the book right up to date. A whole generation of new authors and illustrators are showcased, with books like Dogger, The Hunger Games, and Twilight making their first appearance. There are articles on developments such as manga, fan fiction, and non-print publishing, and there is additional information on prizes and prizewinners. This accessible A to Z is the first place to look for information about the authors, illustrators, printers, publishers, educationalists, and others who have influenced the development of children's literature, as well as the stories and characters at their centre. Written both to entertain and to instruct, the highly acclaimed Oxford Companion to Children's Literature is a reference work that no one interested in the world of children's books should be without.

49 stories ranging over 120 years. Stories reflect life in Australia from the early days of hardship to the recognition of a multicultural society and the new agendas for women's, gay and lesbian, and Aboriginal writing.

This new volume in UQP's History of the Book in Australia series explores Australian book production and consumption from 1946 to the present day. In the immediate postwar era, most books were imported into a colonial market dominated by British publishers. Paper Empires traces this fascinating and volatile half-century, using wide-ranging resea...

“The study of children’s literature is not just about children and the books said to be for them; it is also about the societies and cultures from which the literature comes, and it is about the assumptions and ideas we hold about children and childhood. For adults, reading children’s literature is ultimately both an act of nostalgia and of self-examination. When we consider children’s literature, we must include ourselves in the equation: What kinds of readers are we? How do we relate to books and stories? To what degree should we impose our experience upon others? Reading children’s literature actively can lead to all kinds of remarkable (and sometimes unsettling) revelations about ourselves and our society.” — from the Introduction Considering Children’s Literature is a collection of previously published essays on a variety of topics that inform the study of children’s literature. Exploring issues such as censorship, the canon, the meanings of fairy tales, and the adaptation of children’s literature into film, the essays in this anthology are as diverse as they are illuminating. Along with authors like Natalie Babbitt and Margaret Mahy, teachers, scholars, and publishers of children’s books are also contributors. Accessible and comprehensive, this book will appeal to anyone interested in children’s literature.

Cultural Encounters in Translated Children's Literature offers a detailed and innovative model of analysis for examining the complexities of translating children's literature and sheds light on the interpretive choices at work in moving texts from one culture to another. The core of the study addresses the issue of how images of a nation, locale or country are constructed in translated children's literature, with the translation of Australian children's fiction into French serving as a case study. Issues examined include the selection of books for translation, the relationship between children's books and the national and international publishing industry, the packaging of translations and the importance of titles, blurbs and covers, the linguistic and stylistic features specific to translating for children, intertextual references, the function of the translation in the target culture, didactic and pedagogical aims, euphemistic language and explicitation, and literariness in translated texts. The findings of the case study suggest that the most common constructs of Australia in French translations reveal a preponderance of traditional Eurocentric signifiers that identify Australia with the outback, the antipodes, the exotic, the wild, the unknown, the void, the end of the world, the young and innocent nation, and the Far West. Contemporary signifiers that construct Australia as urban, multicultural, Aboriginal, worldly and inharmonious are seriously under-represented. The study also shows that French translations are conventional, conservative and didactic, showing preference for an exotic rather than local specificity, with systematic manipulation of Australian referents betraying a perception of Australia as antipodean rural exoticism. The significance of the study lies in underscoring the manner in which a given culture is constructed in another cultural milieu, especially through translated children's literature.