Children's and Young Adult Literature Commons^™

Dialogic War: From The Battle Of Maldon To The War Of The Ring, Peter Grybauskas

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

Examines Tolkien’s ability to hold two conflicting ways of thinking in creative tension, representing them through equally sympathetic characters each fairly having their own say, as he does in “The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son.” Grybauskas finds a parallel to this in the way Battle of Maldon balances its praise of Northern courage with its censure of the Earl of Maldon’s Ofermod.

A Matter Of Time: C.S. Lewis's Dark Tower Manuscript And Composition Process, Jonathan B. Himes

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

Explores Lewis’s writing process in the unfinished Dark Tower, leading us through his examination of the manuscript and explaining his conclusions about the order of composition and Lewis’s writing methods.

The Precious And The Pearl: The Influence Of Pearl On The Nature Of The One Ring, Noah Koubenec

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

Examines some roots of Tolkien’s One Ring in Pearl’s themes and motifs, characters, and allegorical functions.

Cordial Dislike: Reinventing The Celestial Ladies Of Pearl And Purgatorio In Tolkien's Galadriel, Sarah Downey

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

Considers the Celestial Lady characters from Pearl and Purgatorio as influences on Tolkien’s Galadriel, in character, appearance, situation, and allegorical significance.

Túrin And Aragorn: Evading And Embracing Fate, Janet Brennan Croft

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

Considers the characters of Aragorn and Túrin and how, at the level of motif, their name changes throughout the legendarium reflect their own very different relationships with their wyrd and the fate of the universe.

Two Rings To Rule Them All: A Comparative Study Of Tolkien And Wagner, Jamie Mcgregor

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

A close comparison of Wagner’s Ring Cycle and the history of the One Ring in Tolkien’s legendarium which goes far beyond the usual shallow or dismissive comparison between the two. Here we see Tolkien, as he frequently did, absorbing the influence of an earlier author and responding in the form of a correction based on his sense that Wagner had, as Shippey put it, “got something very important not quite right” (Road 344).

Reviews, Gregory Bassham, David Bratman, Joe R. Christopher, Charles A. Huttar, Douglas C. Kane, Harley Sims, Donna A. White

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

A Sword between the Sexes?: C.S. Lewis and the Gender Debates. Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen. Reviewed by Joe R. Christopher.

The Cambridge Companion to C.S. Lewis. Edited by Robert MacSwain and Michael Ward. Reviewed by Gregory Bassham.

The Law and Harry Potter. Jeffrey E. Thomas and Franklin G. Snyder, eds. Reviewed by Douglas C. Kane.

Merlin: Knowledge and Power through the Ages. Stephen Knight. Reviewed by Harley J. Sims.

Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings: Sources of Inspiration. Ed. by Stratford Caldecott and Thomas Honegger. Reviewed by Charles A. Huttar.

One Earth, One People: The Mythopoeic Fantasy Series of …

Letters: Stalin's Orcs, Robert T. Tally Jr.

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

Following up on his article in Mythlore 29.1/2, the author summarizes a recent discovery that Josef Stalin once attempted to create a superior species of warrior by cross-breeding humans and apes.

Art According To Romantic Theology: Charles Williams's Analysis Of Dante Reapplied To J.R.R. Tolkien's "Leaf By Niggle", Michael Milburn

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

Provides a grounding in Charles Williams’s “romantic theology,” which was heavily indebted to his reading of Dante, and the application of romantic theology to art, which Milburn demonstrates by examining Tolkien’s “Leaf by Niggle” through this lens. Winner of the Alexei Kondratiev Award at Mythcon 41.

Editorial, Janet Brennan Croft

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

No abstract provided.

Reasonable Conversions: Susanna Rowan's Mentoria And Conversion Narratives For Young Readers, Karen Roggenkamp

Faculty Publications

Though not well known, Rowson's Mentoria-a curious conglomeration of thematically-related pieces from multiple genres, including the essay, epistolary novel, conduct book, and fairy tale-offers particularly fertile ground for thinking about the nexus between eighteenth-century didactic books and earlier works for young readers.2 At the heart of Mentoria is a series of letters describing girls who yield, with dire and frequently deadly consequences, to the passionate pleas of male suitors.3 Fallen women populate Rowson's world, and scholars have traditionally read Mentoria within the familiar bounds of the eighteenth-century seduction novel.4 However, Rowson's creation transforms the older tradition of didactic, child-centered conversion …

Et Cetera, Marshall University

Et Cetera

Founded in 1953, Et Cetera is an annual literary magazine that publishes the creative writing and artwork of Marshall University students and affiliates. Et Cetera is free to the Marshall University community.

Et Cetera welcomes submissions in literary and film criticism, poetry, short stories, drama, all types of creative non-fiction, photography, and art.

A History Of The Pigtail Bridges In South Dakota, Krystol R. Frerking

Graduate Research Papers

The history of the Pigtail Bridges in the Black Hills of South Dakota is an interesting historical story that in children's non-fiction books has not told. Three questions that guided this research were what the best layout/design is for a children's book on the Pigtail Bridges, how does an author select the content for a children's book on a local history topic like the Pigtail Bridges, and what is the most appropriate text structure for this content? The purpose of this research project was to create a non-fiction children's book about the history of the Pigtail Bridges in the Black …

African Language Publishing For Children In South Africa: Challenges For Translators, Viv Edwards, Jacob Marriote Ngwaru

Institute for Educational Development, East Africa

The commitment to multilingualism embedded in the 1996 South African Constitution has wide ranging implications for many aspects of education. This paper focuses on the dearth of teaching and learning materials in African languages required to deliver effective bilingual education, and on the potential role of translation in offering solutions for this problem. Drawing on an analysis of currently available African language books for children and interviews with educators, writers, publishers, translators and organisations concerned with book promotion, it explores issues which have emerged as critical for both the quality and availability of translation. Attention is drawn to the ways …

Hope And Despair In Young Adult Science Fiction, Erin Stohlmeyer

Graduate Research Papers

As young adult science fiction evolves, it can be difficult to understand the themes and tones found within the genre. The purpose of this research was to discover the hopeful messages or the lack of hope in current young adult science fiction. The themes found during the research process included survival, the search for identity/humanity, post-apocalypse/governmental control, medical advancement (technology), and adventure. Thirteen novels written between 2005 and 20 IO were analyzed for themes and messages. Many novels were found to have vastly different societies, governments, and even landscapes. Some of the differences were due to war, climate change, and …

A Content Analysis Of American Civil War Historical Fiction For Upper Elementary Grades, Gwen L. Van Dee

Graduate Research Papers

The purpose of this study was to analyze the treatment of complex issues of the American Civil War in a fifth grade social studies textbook and historical fiction novels, written for upper elementary readers. The study focused on slavery and racial issues, the stresses of war on families, and the aftermath of war.

A content analysis was conducted, using the fifth grade textbook information as a baseline for concepts to be learned. A sample of American Civil War historical fiction books was gathered using the following method: the H W Wilson's Middle School & Junior High Core Collection database was …

The Presence Of Gender Stereotypes In Children's Picture Book Illustrations, Jenahlee Chamberlain

Graduate Research Papers

Numerous studies have been conducted throughout the past several decades on the topic of gender stereotypes present in children's picture books. The purpose of this quantitative content analysis is to examine the portrayal of males and females and the representation of gender roles in children's picture book illustrations. This analysis of 43 children's picture books awarded the Caldecott Award or Caldecott Honor between 2001 and 2011 sought to determine whether or not 21st century award winning children's picture book illustrations portrayed gender stereotypes. Each title was analyzed using a content analysis form to test the three hypotheses for this study. …

Immigration As Portrayed In Literature For Youth, April A. Crowder

Graduate Research Papers

This study addressed the problem that immigrant children face difficulties that may not be portrayed realistically in children's literature. Research questions included 1. Are the immigrant children's situations portrayed authentically, and in what ways? 2. How is the undocumented immigrant child depicted? 3. What are the emerging themes of the authentic literature, and how might they bring greater understanding to the authentic experiences for immigrant children?

Reading Queer Subtexts In Children’S Literature, Jessica Kander

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this project is to explore and to challenge heteronormative assumptions regarding childhood and adolescence. I will show how these assumptions affect the literature published and made available to young readers, and how, often, overtly queer texts are not available for young readers. Such omissions leave young readers, especially those with lesbian, gay, bisexual, and/or transgendered (LGBT) identities, to find depictions of queerness in subtexts underlying seemingly “straight” texts. While these queer subtexts can be recognizable to readers through the use of culturally and historically significant markers that are understood to represent queerness, even a text with a …

Spiritual Independence In Finley's Elsie Dinsmore Series, Alcott's Little Women Seriesand Wilder's Little House Series, Rebekka Anna Mehl

Dissertations

This project bridges the academic fields of comparative religion and children's literature by examining depictions of religious experience in children's literature. I specifically discuss how female religious experience and morality are depicted in three single-author series for girls set between 1850 and 1900—the Elsie Dinsmore series by Martha Finley, the Little Women series by Louisa May Alcott and the Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

I examine the moral principles of honesty and obedience, longsuffering contentment and industriousness and how they can come together to contribute to the development of a sensitive conscience which can encourage a sense of …