From Lewis Carroll's Alice books, which heralded a new "Golden Age" of children's literature, to Cold¬ War era fantasy, comic songs, and Japanese anime, we will consider a variety of different texts and the notions of childhood they reflect and generate. Using Philip Nel and Lissa Paul's seminal Keywords for Children's Literature (2011), students will develop the critical vocabulary necessary to discuss children's fiction, poetry, and film in its aesthetic, ideological, and intellectual contexts. Students will also cultivate a strong theoretical framework for the study of children's literature by engaging with field-defining scholarship by Jacqueline Rose, Perry Nodelman, and others.

a selection of Children literature including Lewis Carroll's Alice books Cold¬ War era fantasy, comic songs, and Japanese anime

the critical vocabulary necessary to discuss children's fiction, poetry, and film in its aesthetic, ideological, and intellectual contexts, theoretical framework by field-defining scholars, for example, Jacqueline Rose, Perry Nodelman