An engaging narrative history, Children’s Fantasy Literature (2016) illuminates and contextualizes the English-language tradition of children’s fantasy. Keep a notebook handy as you read this fascinating study, because you’ll want to head to the library when you’re done.
Authors Michael Levy and Farah Mendlesohn draw upon a range of critical traditions to classify children’s fantasy, distinguishing Tolkien-like high fantasy, for example, from what Brian Attebery calls the “indigenous fantasy” of everyday life. The authors frequently reference the categories of the fantastic (immersive, portal-quest, intrusive, and liminal) that Mendlesohn describes in her acclaimed study Rhetorics of Fantasy (2008). As the authors show, children’s fantasy literature runs the gamut from self-contained magical worlds to journeys through portals into magical realms. But children’s fantasy also includes stories in which magic intrudes suddenly into ordinary life, as well as indefinable flirtations with the surreal.
An impressive number of books are discussed in this study. Rather than focus solely on the greatest hits of the field, the authors have chosen individual works for their significance to the narrative trajectory. Thus you’ll find the usual warhorses—J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, J.K. Rowling, and Ursula Le Guin—but also such lesser-known authors as Franny Billingsley, Nnedi Okorafor, and Hiromi Goto.
Levy and Mendlesohn use a textile metaphor to describe their approach, broadly covering the overall fabric of the field in early chapters, while tracing individual “strands in the weave” as they move chronologically toward the densely populated present.
What the authors are doing in this book is showing us how children’s literature has been shaped by the changing role of children in society, by historical shifts in values, and by the legacy of groundbreaking texts. In their own words, they have “traced changing ideas about who children are and how they grow to adulthood . . . [examining] the ways in which this evolution has shaped the genre of children’s literature.”
It goes without saying that as the experience of childhood has changed, so have children’s books. But Levy and Mendlesohn are able to illustrate this vividly. For example, they demonstrate how the disruptions of British childhood during and after WWII fostered a preoccupation with evil, agency, and consequences in the work of C.S. Lewis (The Chronicles of Narnia) and Susan Cooper (The Dark is Rising).
Along with C.S. Lewis, Diana Wynne Jones is the most thoroughly discussed author in this text, in part because her work is so wide-ranging and impinges upon so many different threads in the tradition. Her book Fire and Hemlock is discussed in a section on “A sudden flowering of heroines”—which also includes Patricia McKillip’s The Forgotten Beasts of Eld and Robin McKinley’s The Hero and the Crown.
A few other highlights in this study are Ursula Le Guin’s “rejection and reworking of Tolkien,” the questioning of “destiny” as a narrative construct, the decolonization of the imagination, and the increasingly visible role of LGBT writers and authors of color.
For this reader, the most fascinating chapter in Children’s Fantasy Literature is the final one. Addressing the “bitterness” of contemporary Young Adult fantasy, Levy and Mendlesohn show how far we have come from “consolatory” or escapist fantasies. In David Almond’s Skellig, readers encounter a fallen angel and a boy whose little sister is critically ill. Philip Pullman’s The Dark Materials trilogy takes young readers on a brutal journey with few consolations. Writing for increasingly sophisticated teen readers, Margo Lanagan (Tender Morsels) references loss and isolation and sexual abuse, while Suzanne Collin’s The Hunger Games describes a world of inescapable violence and injustice. In reading these books, young readers are struggling to “find their own lives and gain agency in the world they live in.” Childhood is more difficult than adults remember, and the bitter fantasies of the current age allow children and teens to see their experience reflected in a truthful way, without coddling or deception.
To read this valuable study is to have a seat at the table while two of our most insightful scholars share their passion for children’s fantasy literature. Farah Mendlesohn is one of our most brilliant critics, and Michael Levy was a giant in the field of fantasy scholarship, a generous mentor, and an inspiration to a generation of scholars. This book is highly recommended.
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Children's Fantasy Literature: An Introduction Kindle Edition
by
Michael Levy
(Author),
Farah Mendlesohn
(Author)
Format: Kindle Edition
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Farah Mendlesohn
(Author)
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LanguageEnglish
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PublisherCambridge University Press
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Publication dateApril 16, 2016
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File size1079 KB
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Editorial Reviews
Review
"Levy and Mendlesohn give a convincing explanation for a distinctively post-Second World War literature where children are unprotected, where they have agency and responsibility, where they face true and terrible evil. As time goes on, the stakes continue to rise. Compare Nesbit's world to Narnia - do our young protagonists have a small, limited quest to complete, or do we expect them to save the world?"
Daniel Hahn, The Spectator
'Children’s Fantasy Literature: An Introduction is an immense work in scope and scholarship. As befits its authors, Michael Levy and Farah Mendlesohn - two prominent figures in the world of children’s literature criticism - this latest work is a far-reaching feat that grasps the tenuous strings of the inception of both fantasy and children’s literature and weaves them from the sixteenth through the twenty-first centuries into a tremendous narrative tapestry.' Joli Barham McClelland, Children's Literature Association Quarterly
'Sharing their extensive knowledge of the topic, Michael Levy and Farah Mendlesohn have made a relevant contribution to the study of this field with their monograph Children’s Fantasy Literature: An Introduction. Published in 2016 by Cambridge University Press, the book is a result of the continuing collaboration of the authors, their colleagues, and students … Levy and Mendlesohn have succeeded in finding a manner of expression which can easily be understood by scholars and experts, but also those whose knowledge of fantasy is not yet extensive.' Katarina Kralj, Libri & Liberi --This text refers to the hardcover edition.
Daniel Hahn, The Spectator
'Children’s Fantasy Literature: An Introduction is an immense work in scope and scholarship. As befits its authors, Michael Levy and Farah Mendlesohn - two prominent figures in the world of children’s literature criticism - this latest work is a far-reaching feat that grasps the tenuous strings of the inception of both fantasy and children’s literature and weaves them from the sixteenth through the twenty-first centuries into a tremendous narrative tapestry.' Joli Barham McClelland, Children's Literature Association Quarterly
'Sharing their extensive knowledge of the topic, Michael Levy and Farah Mendlesohn have made a relevant contribution to the study of this field with their monograph Children’s Fantasy Literature: An Introduction. Published in 2016 by Cambridge University Press, the book is a result of the continuing collaboration of the authors, their colleagues, and students … Levy and Mendlesohn have succeeded in finding a manner of expression which can easily be understood by scholars and experts, but also those whose knowledge of fantasy is not yet extensive.' Katarina Kralj, Libri & Liberi --This text refers to the hardcover edition.
About the Author
Michael Levy is Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin, Stout. He is the author of Natalie Babbitt (1991) and Portrayal of Southeast Asian Refugees in Recent American Children's Books (2000), editor of The Moon Pool by A. Merritt (2004), and co-editor of the peer-reviewed journal Extrapolation. Levy was awarded the Clareson Award for Distinguished Service to the fields of science fiction and fantasy in 2007.
Farah Mendlesohn is Head of the Department of English and Media and Professor of Literary History at Anglia Ruskin University. She is the author of Rhetorics of Fantasy (2008) and The Inter-Galactic Playground: Children, Teens and Science Fiction (2009), co-author of A Short History of Fantasy (2009), and co-editor of the Hugo Award-winning Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction (Cambridge, 2003) and The Cambridge Companion to Fantasy (Cambridge, 2012). --This text refers to the hardcover edition.
Farah Mendlesohn is Head of the Department of English and Media and Professor of Literary History at Anglia Ruskin University. She is the author of Rhetorics of Fantasy (2008) and The Inter-Galactic Playground: Children, Teens and Science Fiction (2009), co-author of A Short History of Fantasy (2009), and co-editor of the Hugo Award-winning Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction (Cambridge, 2003) and The Cambridge Companion to Fantasy (Cambridge, 2012). --This text refers to the hardcover edition.
Book Description
A comprehensive study of children's fantasy literature across the English-speaking world, from the sixteenth century to the present.
--This text refers to the hardcover edition.
Book Description
This fascinating volume discusses a wide range of children's fantasy literature from the sixteenth century to the present, analysing key themes and ideas in important texts from across the English-speaking world. It features the work of Lewis Carroll, Frank Baum, C. S. Lewis, Roald Dahl and J. K. Rowling.
--This text refers to the digital edition.
Product details
- ASIN : B01CJUV1HE
- Publisher : Cambridge University Press (April 16, 2016)
- Publication date : April 16, 2016
- Language : English
- File size : 1079 KB
- Simultaneous device usage : Up to 4 simultaneous devices, per publisher limits
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Not Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Print length : 282 pages
- Lending : Not Enabled
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,561,847 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
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Reviewed in the United States on March 3, 2018
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This magisterial account of three centuries of Anglophone fantasy literature for children is astonishingly well researched, theorized, and even written. So well plotted and organized is its argument that it exercises more the power of a gripping narrative than a critical work. The authors usefully identify movements and genres that they link not only to social histories and ideologies but other critical treatments. Its deft engagement with other discussions of fantasy contributes not a little to its forward momentum, as do its various useful sidebars
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Mrs. P. Archell-thompson
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Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 28, 2018Verified Purchase
This is an academic read and a good overview of the historic influences surrounding the subject
A. Baker
5.0 out of 5 stars
An excellent introduction to fantasy fiction for children
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 10, 2016Verified Purchase
An excellent introduction to fantasy fiction for children. Highly recommended for both the clarity of the writing as for the scholarly content, this will be an invaluable text for students of children's literature.
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