Family in Children's and Young Adult Literature

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 The breadth of essays in Family in Children's and Young Adult Literature encourages readers to think beyond the outdated but culturally privileged 'nuclear family' and is a vital resource for students, academics, educators, and practitioners.

Foreword

Ann Alston

Eleanor Spencer and Jade Dillon Craig

1. Where Are They Now? Manifestations of (Monstrous) Mothers in Fairy Tales

Claudia Schwabe

2. Perspectives on Fathers and Fatherhood within Children's Literature: A Case Study of Katya Balen's October, October

Richard Charlesworth

3. 'Shrewd sound-hearted maiden aunts': The Aunt Figure in Children's Literature

Jane Suzanne Carroll

4. "What's the point of grandpa?": Grandparents in Children's Literature

Vanessa Joosen

Part II: Home, Nation, and Empire

5. Families Formed, Found and Fractured in the Children's Novels of Frances Hodgson Burnett

Elisabeth Rose Gruner

6. The Feral Child and the More-than-Human Family

Jessica Straley

7. A Gift to the Family of Britain: Depictions of African, Caribbean and Black British Families in British Children's Literature after 1970

Karen Sands-O'Connor and Phyllis Ramage

8. Kinning with Picturebooks about La Frontera

Macarena García-González and Evelyn Arizpe

Part III: Growing Pains and Teenage Dreams

9. Bowlby, Blyton, and Child Care Issues in The Famous Five series

Nicholas Tucker

10. From First Born to Second Fiddle: Empathy is an Argument if Your Name is Peter Hatcher in Judy Blume's Fudge Books

Joseph Michael Sommers

11. "Mum's no fun now": Constructing the Maternal in the Family Fictions of Jacqueline Wilson

Kay Waddilove

12. 'Chasing the Dragon': The Anxieties of Family in the Fiction of Melvin Burgess

Alyson Miller

13. A Taste for the Secret: Tracing Secretive Families in Malorie Blackman's Fiction

Blanka Grzegorczyk

14. Queering the Family in Young Adult Literature: Adam Silvera's They Both Die at the End, Familial Disruption, and the Space of the Home

Angel Daniel Matos

Part IV: Alternative Families in Alternative Worlds

15. Lost Boys, Found Boys: Masculinities and Families in J. K Rowling's Harry Potter

Eleanor Spencer

16. Unhomely Domestic Spaces in Neil Gaiman's Coraline

Jade Dillon Craig

17. Apple to Pomegranate: Vampires and Families in the Twilight Saga

Lisa Nevarez

18. Breeders, Rebels and Warriors: The Oppression of Adolescent Mothers in the Young Adult Dystopias The Lone City trilogy and Gather the Daughters

Malin Alkestrand