Children's and Young Adult Literature Commons^™

Trouble In Paradise: Paul And Virginia‘S Snapshot Of Limited Enlightenment Progressivism, Henna Neilson

CAFE Symposium 2026

This project analyzes the 1788 children's story "Paul and Virginia" by Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre. Written in the pastoral literary genre, it tells the star-crossed love story of Paul and Virginia, childhood friends who live on the French colony Île-de-France (present-day Mauritius). The work exemplifies many highlights of the Enlightenment progressivism, socializing its young readers to criticize the oppressive class systems in Europe. However, the work is limited by the physiocratic view of slavery, which maintained that the slave trade was justified if the enslaved humans were treated "humanely". As a result, Paul and Virginia's slavery plot line includes problematic …

A Godless Greek Mythology: The Desecration Of Greek Mythology For Children, Vanessa Russo

CAFE Symposium 2026

This project analyzes how Nathaniel Hawthorne’s A Wonder Book for Girls and Boys (1851) socialized young American readers by immersing them in a fictitious New England Utopia. While some scholars assert that Wonder Book represents a shift from the didactic nature of nineteenth century children's literature to a style that prioritized entertainment and fostered imaginative play, Hawthorne’s rewriting, or rather his desecration, of six classic Greek Myths certainly had moral undertones that reaffirmed a simplistic Puritan ideal: a pure relationship with the Christian God, women embracing the ideology of the cult of domesticity and staying out of the political sphere, …

Instilling Patriotism And Prejudice Through Game Of Battles Or Fun For Boys, Gabby Gavaghan

CAFE Symposium 2026

For my Poster Project, I dove into the underlying socialization and indoctrination embedded within a board game from 1899 called "Game of Battles or Fun For Boys." I explored the overwhelming messages of toxic masculinity, the encouragement of enlisting in the military, and the lack of representation of women and African Americans.

Complexities And Intersectionalities Of Rurality In Our Current Moment: Conversations Offered Through The 2025 Whippoorwill Book Award, Michael J. Young, Erika L. Bass, Erin Schulz, Monica Roe, Jacqueline Yahn

The Rural Educator

The 2025 Whippoorwill Award-winning book and eight honor books offer conversations for navigating the intersectional complexities of rural life in important ways. In this moment when division, marginalization, and erasure continue to impact our national (and global) story, we committed ourselves to selecting books that provide narratives offering a nuanced examination of the complex ways our identities and experiences intersect with rurality. This conversation recognizes that the winner and honor books offer opportunities for celebrating our stories, our struggles, and our unwavering commitment to living our rural lives with authenticity, love, and joy.

Reading About Gender Identity In A Rural Community: Discourse Around Young Adult Literature And Social Justice, Ashley S. Boyd, Rachael R. Wolney

Journal of Queer and Trans Studies in Education

This study explores how a rural adult book club engaged with gender identity through young adult literature (YAL), focusing on Mason Deaver’s I Wish You All the Best. Facilitated by two teacher educators, the club brought together local residents and a guest speaker from a regional support organization to discuss gender, pronouns, and the experiences of nonbinary youth. Using critical discourse analysis and thematic coding, the authors examine how participants, cisgender adults, navigated unfamiliar concepts, reflected on their own beliefs, and considered implications for their personal and professional lives. Findings highlight the power of YAL to serve as a …

Beyond The City Limits: Representations Of Rurality And Lgbtqia+ Youth In Young Adult Literature, Michelle L. Page

Journal of Queer and Trans Studies in Education

Narratives of flight from rural to urban areas predominate in research related to LGBTQIA+ communities. Thus, rural LGBTQIA+ young people rarely see representations of themselves or their environments, especially positive portrayals. Such representations are important in that they are productive of identities, not just reflective of them. This study examines a collection of young adult literature with LGBTQIA characters and rural settings, analyzing the portrayals of place (rurality) and identity (LGBTQIA+). In this paper I will demonstrate how current LGBTQIA+ young adult literature reinforces dominant narratives that privilege urbanity and I assert that counternarratives to the rural flight story are …

Bridging Fantasy And Identity Through Narrative, Washington C. Pearce

New Jersey English Journal

In this personal essay I explore the connection between fantastical literacy and a student's perception of their own identity. As we explore fantastical narrative worlds, we learn the vocabulary to describe our own lives and write our own life-stories.

Laila: A Doll Memoir Of 1947 Partition Of India And Pakistan, Maleeha Malik, Maleeha Fatima Malik

Children's Literature (MFA) Theses

This abstract examines a creative and critical work centered on the 1947 Partition of India, which displaced approximately fourteen million people and caused one million deaths. The narrative introduces Laila, an anthropomorphized doll who functions as both witness and archive, embodying the memories and traumas of multiple child survivors. Through Laila’s journey across India, Pakistan, and the diaspora, the text explores themes of identity, belonging, loss, and intergenerational memory.

Blending personal family history with historical analysis, the author situates Laila within lived experiences of migration, silence, and religious marginalization, particularly as part of the Ahmadi Muslim community. The narrative foregrounds …

Children Past Curfew: Surveillance, Resistance, And Childhood In Philippine Martial Law Children's Literature, Krisna Marie T. Balolong

Children's Literature (MA) Theses

This paper examines how two Philippine children's books depict state surveillance and its effects on a child's perspective of family, authority figures, and childhood. Through analysis of Augie Rivera's Isang Harding Papel and Sandra Nicole Roldan's At the School Gate, this project makes a connection between children's literature and surveillance studies, offering new framework to engage with children’s literature depicting authoritarian regimes and state violence, especially in cases where children were targets of their governments. Each book is examined by their representations of state surveillance during the Martial Law era of the Philippines, as well as each characters’ individual …

Mythcon 54 - Get Your Fantasy Kicks On Route 66!, The Mythopoeic Society

Mythcon Programs

Theme: Get Your Fantasy Kicks on Route 66

As part of the Route 66 centennial events that will be occurring across Oklahoma throughout 2026, Mythcon 54, a three-day conference, will add literary discussions to the festivities with the theme Get Your Fantasy Kicks on Route 66that encourages attendees to register for conference and to join us in discussions of fantasy literature that include:

• urban or epic fantasy about the adventures of travels on the road
• fantasy literature from or inspired by native American oral, written, or historic traditions
• the MythSoc archive, located on Route 66, and the role of …

Look, Make, Play: The Natural Order In Children’S Books, Claire M. Lloyd

Children's Book Writing and Illustrating (MFA) Theses

This paper will examine conceptualizations of nature through environmentally themed picture books. While environmentalism is not a new topic for children’s book, recent works reveal changing attitudes toward the impact of human agency on the natural world. These texts provide a microcosmic view of the shift toward “green” kidlit and shows literary depictions of human interactions with nonhuman nature through an ecocritical lens. Specifically, I will look at three approaches to how humans conceive of, impact, and interact with the natural world depicted in children’s literature: observation (as the observable “other”), creation (as a communal resource), and recreation (as urban …

Just War Theory In The Hunger Games: Suzanne Collins’S Critique Of Violence, Power, And Rebellion, Laila Hannum

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis applies just war theory to Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games trilogy, arguing that while the districts' rebellion satisfies the principles of jus ad bellum (justice in going to war), it systematically violates jus in bello (justice in the conduct of war) and jus post bellum (justice after war), and ultimately replicates the oppressive structures of the Capitol it sought to overthrow.

Drawing primarily on Michael Walzer's Just and Unjust Wars and on Brian Orend's ideas on post-war justice, this thesis traces the rebellion's moral arc across all three novels. Chapter One shows that the rebellion meets the criteria …

What's That Sound?, Leslie Lemus

Athena: Undergraduate Research and Literary Journal

"What’s That Sound?" is a metaphorical short story that explores racism through the lens of a mysterious, ever-growing sound. The protagonist begins to hear a strange noise, subtle at first, then increasingly deafening as they navigate daily life. Despite their confusion and efforts to understand the source, those around them, particularly white individuals, dismiss or deny the sound’s existence. Only other people of color acknowledge it, sharing a collective understanding. Through symbolism, the story illustrates how racism operates as an ever-present force felt deeply by marginalized communities, yet often ignored or unheard by those not directly affected.

The Best Children's Books Of The Year In Spanish [2026 Edition], Bank Street College Of Education. Children's Book Committee

The Center for Children's Literature

An annotated list of the best children's books in Spanish published or translated in 2025. In English and Spanish.

Spanish title: Los mejores libros infantiles del año 2026.

Modernism’S Wild Child: The Interplay Of Modernist And Children’S Literature, Rachel Riffel

All Master's Theses

Within literary criticism, American and British modernism are often characterized by the disillusioned writers and creators who established an elitist literary community during the early 20^th century. This period is also distinguished by the Harlem Renaissance highlighting Black art, culture, and writing. Gertrude Stein, T. S. Eliot, Langston Hughes and Arna Bontemps are well-known for contributing core texts to modernism and the Harlem Renaissance that expressed existential themes and developed experimental techniques. What many readers don’t know, however, is that these authors and many other contemporaries wrote stories and poetry for children. In this thesis, I explore the children’s …

From Frontier To Folk: Changes In Canadian Identity Through Constructions Of Land In Canadian Crusoes And Anne Of Green Gables, Aibhlin Janicki-Zeballos

Laurier Undergraduate Journal of the Arts

No abstract provided.

The World Of Magic Suite: The Emergence Of A Light Novelist, Frederick A. Drayton The Third

Master's Projects

This Master’s Thesis, "THE WORLD OF MAGIC SUITE: THE EMERGENCE OF A LIGHT NOVELIST," is a collection of loosely related fictional works rooted in a seven-year-old promise made by the author to a family member. The project serves as an exploration of the author’s evolving voice and approach to writing fiction, using the unifying theme of "The Personal is The Political is The Supernatural" to build immersive fantasy worlds. The suite contains three distinct narratives. "Apathy’s Reward," a dark fantasy short story, follows Calrie DuNacht, the Apathetic Exorcist of the Golden Cathedral, as she confronts grief and the discomfort of …

“Twist But Don’T Break:” Constellating Past And Present Barriers In Black Queer Multimodal Publishing That Shift Text Into Subtext; Addressing Acceptance Into Queer Creative Communities And The Void Of Black Voices Within, Kae Ann Dennert-Frederick

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

What does it look like to reframe our understanding of intersectional work? Looking at multimodality I will walk through the multiple frameworks by asking how Black Queer publishing of Young Adult fiction uses visuals to describe what cannot be said and what choices are made to show community structure and language, while also having to adapt for publication standards. I have researched this by looking into examples of Queer publishing (any representation of queerness in a form of publishing—in the text and sometimes in the authors' identity), as well as authors’ use of visuals to say what cannot be said …

Children’S And Adult Perspectives On Mental Health In Children’S Youth Literature And Media, Edcel J. Cintron-Gonzalez

Theses and Dissertations

My dissertation extends existing work on mental health in children’s literature to examine the different narratives strategies that text, film, and media for young audiences use to connect childhood, caregiving, and emotional wellbeing. Three areas of scholarship—children’s literature scholarship, health humanities work, and feminist care ethics—inform my project. Overall, I am interested in how a variety of genres for young readers represent mental health not only as an individual experience, but also as something shaped by family, culture, community, and adult-child relationships. It is therefore important to delineate the different concepts and frameworks that help make sense of how mental …

The Right To Read: Opposing The Censorship Of Young Adult Literature On Grounds Of Sexually Explicit Content, Kate Fortner

Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis, I use intersections between sexuality studies, feminism, queer theory, and theories of children’s and young adult literature to examine and historicize the prevalence of book bans and challenges between 2020 and 2025 that target young adult literature on the basis of sexually explicit content. To understand the opposition to portrayals of underage heterosexuality, I analyze John Green’s Looking for Alaska, considering its history of censorship as well as the author’s response to those bans. To understand the challenges to depictions of LGBTQ+ identities aimed at young people, I look at Maia Kobabe’s Gender Queer and Juno …