When looking back through the last eighty years, one thing is certain: the socio-political climate has changed dramatically. From the beginning of the 20th century where racism and sexism was rampant to the beginning of the 21st century where equal rights and acceptance of all is becoming the norm, the climate has flipped throughout the last one hundred years. The question to then ask is how does the climate impact literature, specifically children’s literature. Research shows that children’s literature is impacted, but research does not describe how it is impacted. This thesis will work to qualify the quantitative research by explaining how the socio-political climate impacts children’s literature. By looking at three texts over the past eighty years, the qualitative analysis shows how children’s literature is impacted by the socio-political climate. The three texts that will be analyzed are And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street by Dr. Seuss (1937), Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak (1963), and Ada Twist, Scientist by Andrea Beaty (2016).

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Literature for children does more than simply entertain, or create fantastical spaces for children to occupy—children’s literature is instructive. I argue that didacticism in literary tales for children works according to the two main ideologies of childhood, which Marina Warner refers to as “myths” in her essay Little Angles, Little Monsters: Keeping Childhood Innocent (1995). This study analyzes the two main nineteenth-century attitudes regarding childhood and their presence in literary tales—childhood innocence and inherent naughtiness. I argue that these ideologies reveal the struggle to accurately and collectively define childhood. In particular, I discuss naughty children in selections from Heinrich Hoffmann’s Struwwelpeter (1845), and innocent/good children in Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales, including The Emperor’s New Clothes (1837), The Snow Queen (1844), Dance, Dolly, Dance (1871), etc... In addition, I argue that these attitudes from the Victorian era are still present in today’s discourse surrounding childhood and in the literature of today, which I demonstrate through Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book (2008) and Alvin Schwartz’ In a Dark, Dark Room and Other Scary Stories (1984). / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

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The present study investigates Asia’s first Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore’s (1861-1941) writings for children, situating his work in the tumultuous time of colonial India marching towards independence. The study makes an original contribution to Tagore scholarship and the field of children’s literature arguing that Tagore’s designated protagonist, the Bengali child, subverts social and political structures of power and authority, and is a vehicle for the author’s hopes for future. The discourse of Tagore’s literature for children posits, hopes for, and construes an implied child reader - the imagined nation’s future citizens. His constructions of childhood, the study claims, are symbolic, oscillating between the reflective and the transformative and synthesising the author’s intentions, fears, desires, values and attitudes towards childhood. In order to reach its overarching conclusions, the present study has considered the political and social contexts of the original production of the texts which is reflected in the study’s theoretical assumption - the historicist reading of childhood informed by postcolonial and power-oriented theories of children’s literature. Close reading of a selection of Tagore’s writings for children suggest that Tagore’s own ideologies about childhood were decisively shaped by the colonial time and the colonised place in which he lived, and his images of childhood concentrate on physical landscapes of the indigenous Bengal in order to construct an imagined decolonised landscape, and form consciousness of national identity. The present study has also argued that Tagore’s fictional world(s) of children are a result of restorative re-imagining and re-inventing, not just manifestation of his personal grief and experiences. Additionally, Tagore has employed fictive children for a variety of conflicting and complementary uses: mighty and empowered children in fantasy critique fascist regimentation, but their images are juxtaposed elsewhere with realistic portrayals of helpless and disempowered children who are unable to seek agency against societal oppression. Tagore’s persistent but persuasive portrayals of uninspired children in mechanised colonial education and of coercive teachers and teaching methods illuminate his educational ideologies and confirm a prescriptive authorial presence in the narrative. Yet, the present study has contended that Tagore’s imagined childhood is an empowered time and space in which fictive children are able to acquire agency and self-awareness through a variety of pleasurable and unpleasurable experiences, functioning as a democratic channel where child-adult power relations are constantly being negotiated.

Thesis (Ed. D.) in Literacy Education--University of Maine, 2001. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 304-318).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Indiana University of Pennsylvania. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Texas Woman's University, 1990. / Abstract. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 142-152).

The First Book of Airplanes, published in 1944 under the title The First Book of Flying and since revised three times, is the initial book issued by Franklin Watts, Inc., as a part of the prolific 'First Book Series.' Since that time, 99 more titles have been issued, bringing the total to 100. Although the publisher indicated 100 as the official number of books in the series as of May 15, 1959, this writer actually located 108 books published by Franklin Watts, Inc., with the title The First Book of ---. However, since the publisher includes only 100 titles in the series, the list of 99 titles in the Franklin Watts, Inc. catalog of books for spring and summer 1959 and 1 title listed in the Franklin Watts catalog in the Publishers' Trade List Annual and not included in the other list were chosen as the group of books to be discussed in this paper. The purpose of this extensive series is 'to create a group of individual non-fiction titles which would give a child both information and understanding on a subject when he first becomes interested in it.' The present writer intends to examine thoroughly the 'First Book Series' in terms of the claims made by the publisher and to determine by examination of a selected number of individual titles and analysis of reviewers' reactions the extent to which these claims are justified. / Typescript. / "August, 1959." / "Submitted to the Graduate School of Florida State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts." / Advisor: Louise Galloway, Professor Directing Paper. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 57-64).

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of M. Bibl. in the Department of Library Science at the University of Zululand, South Africa, 1987. / Primary school children of the Mehlwesizwe Circuit, who are learning to read for the first time do not have sufficient reading material in Zulu. These books are essential to the formulation of proper reading habits and the stimulation of the desire to read. An investigation was conducted with all lower primary schools of Mehlwesizwe Circuit, South African publishers, all local bookshops and libraries to ascertain whether any appropriate books in Zulu were available for purchase or loan. Results indicated that few such books were available and of those found, 88 % were translations from other languages and were often unsuitable.1 Possible solutions and recommendations have been presented. / Human Sciences Research Council