This concise, engaging, practical overview of children's literature keeps the focus on the books that children read. KEY TOPICS: Read, Read, Read; What Is a Good Book? How to Recognize a Well-Written Book; How to Recognize a Well-Illustrated Book; children's Books: History and Trends; Organizing Children's Literature by Genre: Picture Books, Poetry, Folk Literature, Modern Fantasy, Contemporary realistic Fiction, Historical Fiction, Biography, Informational Books, and Multicultural and International Books; Books in the Classroom; Controversial Books; Teaching with Children's Books MARKET: For classroom teachers, grades PreK to 8th grade.

As undergraduate and graduate courses in children's literature become more established and numerous, there is an intense need for a textbook that offers aesthetic rather than educational approaches to children's literature. This work fills that void by providing students of children's literature with a comprehensible and easy-to-use analytical tool kit, showing through concrete demonstration how each tool might best be used. The chapters are organized around familiar and easily recognized features of literary texts (e.g. author, genre, character). Theoretical issues are illustrated by specific texts from the North American children's literature canon. The book explores the particular aesthetics of children's fiction and the ways critical theory may be applied to children's texts, while remaining accessible to a college readership without prior specialized knowledge of literary theory. Each chapter includes a short introduction to a specific theoretical approach (e.g. semiotics, feminist, psychoanalytic), an example of its application to a literary text, a number of activities (study questions, reading exercises), and suggestions for further explorations.

• Fully updated research and inclusion of recent children’s book titles, including more diverse and inclusive literature such as LGBTQ children’s books • New Read, Watch, Listen resources within each chapter; new Activities for Professional Development and Print and Online Resources sections • New emphases and expanded attention to censorship and diversity.

This practitioner-oriented introduction to literature for children ages 5–12 covers the latest trends, titles, and tools for choosing the best books and materials as well as for planning fun and effective programs and activities. The third edition of Children's Literature in Action provides an activity-oriented survey of children's literature for undergraduate and graduate students seeking licensure and degrees that will lead to careers working with children in schools and public libraries. Author Sylvia M. Vardell draws on her 30 years of university teaching and extensive familiarity with the major textbooks in the area of children's literature to deliver something different: a book that focuses specifically on the perspective and needs of the librarian, with emphasis on practical action and library applications. Its contents address seven major genres: picture books, traditional tales, poetry, contemporary realistic fiction, historical fiction, fantasy, and informational books. Each chapter includes practical applications for the educator who shares books with children and who develops literature-based instruction. Chapters are enriched by author comments, collaborative activities, featured books, special topics, and activities including selected awards and celebrations, historical connections, recommended resources, issues for discussion, and assignment suggestions. This new edition incorporates the 2018 AASL National School Library Standards.

Children′s literature is a powerful resource that can inspire a young reader’s lifetime love of reading, but how can you ensure that your literacy teaching uses this rich creative world to its fullest? This book gives pre-service primary teachers an in-depth guide to each major type of children′s book, examining the form, structure and approach of each. From fairy tales and non-fiction to picture books and digital texts, learn what qualities underpin outstanding children′s literature and how you can use this to inspire rewarding learning experiences in your classroom. Key features: Each chapter is full of key book recommendations to help you select excellent age-appropriate texts for your learners An international focus across English-language publishing, covering key books from Australian, US and UK authors A special focus on Australian indigenous children′s literature Busting popular myths about children′s literature to give you a deeper understanding of the form Evaluation criteria for every genre, helping you to recognise the qualities of high quality books This is essential reading for anyone training to teach in primary schools and qualified teachers looking to improve their professional knowledge. Matthew Zbaracki is State Head of Victoria in the National School of Education at ACU, Melbourne.

Since its emergence in the seventeenth century as a distinctive cultural system, children's literature has had a culturally inferior status resulting from its existence in a netherworld between the literary system and the educational system. In addition to its official readership—children—it has to be approved of by adults. Writers for children, explains Zohar Shavit, are constrained to respond to these multiple systems of often mutually contradictory demands. Most writers do not try to bypass these constraints, but accept them as a framework for their work. In the most extreme cases an author may ignore one segment of the readership. If the adult reader is ignored, the writer risks rejection, as is the case of popular literature. If the writer utilizes the child as a pseudo addressee in order to appeal to an adult audience, the result can be what Shavit terms an ambivalent work. Shavit analyzes the conventions and the moral aims that have structured children's literature, from the fairy tales collected and reworked by Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm—in particular, “Little Red Riding Hood”—through the complex manipulations of Lewis Carroll in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, to the subversion of the genre's canonical requirements in the chapbooks of the eighteenth century, and in the formulaic Nancy Drew books of the twentieth century. Throughout her study Shavit, explores not only how society has shaped children's literature, but also how society has been reflected in the literary works it produces for its children.

The Routledge Companion to Children’s Literature is a vibrant and authoritative exploration of children’s literature in all its manifestations. It features a series of essays written by expert contributors who provide an illuminating examination of why children’s literature is the way it is. Topics covered include: the history and development of children's literature various theoretical approaches used to explore the texts, including narratological methods questions of gender and sexuality along with issues of race and ethnicity realism and fantasy as two prevailing modes of story-telling picture books, comics and graphic novels as well as ‘young adult’ fiction and the ‘crossover’ novel media adaptations and neglected areas of children’s literature. The Routledge Companion to Children’s Literature contains suggestions for further reading throughout plus a helpful timeline and a substantial glossary of key terms and names, both established and more cutting-edge. This is a comprehensive and up-to-date guide to an increasingly complex and popular discipline.

Based on extensive research on the features that make children's books appealing and appropriate, this valuable teacher resource offers guidance on selecting books, strategies for specific grade levels, suggestions for extension, and tips for assessment. This teacher-friendly book is organized around the major genres -- traditional literature, picture books, nonfiction, poetry, and multicultural texts -- that will inspire young readers. Throughout the book, teachers will find suggestions for using literature to implement shared reading, reading aloud, and response strategies with emergent, developing, and independent readers.

This wonderful resource from two authors with an infectious enthusiasm for children's literature will help readers select and share quality books for and with young children. Specifically focused on infants through the third grade, Sharing the Journey contains descriptive book annotations, instructive commentary, and creative teaching activities tailored for those important years. Extensive book lists throughout will help readers build a library of quality children's literature. Books representing other cultures are included to help celebrate diversity as well as cultural connection. Genre chapters include poetry, fantasy, and realistic and historical fiction. A chapter on informational books demonstrates how young children can be introduced to, and learn to enjoy, nonfiction.

Teaching Young Adult Literature Today introduces the reader to what is current and relevant in the plethora of good books available for adolescents. More importantly, literary experts illustrate how teachers everywhere can help their students become lifelong readers by simply introducing them to great reads—smart, insightful, and engaging books that are specifically written for adolescents. Hayn, Kaplan, and their contributors address a wide range of topics: how to avoid common obstacles to using YAL; selecting quality YAL for classrooms while balancing these with curriculum requirements; engaging disenfranchised readers; pairing YAL with technology as an innovative way to teach curriculum standards across all content areas. Contributors also discuss more theoretical subjects, such as the absence of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning (LGBTQ) young adult literature in secondary classrooms; and contemporary YAL that responds to the changing expectations of digital generation readers who want to blur the boundaries between page and screen. This book has been updated to reflect the wealth of new YA literature that has been published since the first edition appeared in March 2012, and to reflect new trends in technology that influences how adolescents are reading and responding to literature.