Children's and Young Adult Literature Commons^™

Greeting Death “Sitting Up:” How Children’S Literature Provides Modern Death Education, Reilly Kendrick

Honors Theses

Western culture places a lot of importance on legacy and friendship as important lessons to learn from death. However, children do not have as much experience with death due to changing cultural customs, and our society lacks a formal death education system that can promote these values and teach children how to respond to death in their lives. Literature, though, can fill this gap in children’s knowledge by teaching the basic physical components of death and philosophical understandings of death. These ideas are learned through vicarious reading, in which children experience the character’s emotions and reactions as they read. The …

Judging A Book By Its Cover: Exploring Ethical Solutions For Marketing & Labeling Romance Novels With Illustrated Cover Art, Tricia Filbrun

Honors Projects

As social media platforms and subcommunities have driven massive sales for romance titles in the publishing industry, there has been an intense debate among literary communities, parents, and school administrators about whether the illustrated cover art style is appropriate. Some readers feel that these books are intentionally marketed towards a younger audience, and the sexually explicit nature of the content was not made clear, or labeled at all, before they read the book. This paper explores four likely marketing and labeling solutions that could be implemented to resolve this issue, and whether they are ethical by marketing and advertising standards, …

Briefly Noted: Raven And Crow: The Mythology, Art And Science Of Our Favorite Black Birds By Ellen W. Williams By Ellen W. Williams, Janet Croft

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

Review of Raven and Crow: The Mythology, Art and Science of Our Favorite Black Birds by Ellen W. Williams, McFarland, 2025.

J.R.R. Tolkien's Women Of Middle-Earth: Including Sir Peter Jackson's Women Of Middle-Earth By Chris Barclay, Diane Riggins

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

No abstract provided.

Mythopoeic Narrative In The Legend Of Zelda, Edited By Anthony G. Cirilla And Vincent E. Rone, Bianca L. Beronio

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

This review assesses Mythopoeic Narrative in The Legend of Zelda, edited by Anthony G. Cirilla and Vincent E. Rone, as a compelling contribution to fantasy studies, mythopoeia, and game studies that argues for the academic centrality of interactive narrative media. The volume positions The Legend of Zelda not merely as popular entertainment, but as a sophisticated mythic tradition; part of an evolving legendarium shaped through iterative storytelling, symbolic worldbuilding, and ethically structured heroic narrative. Emphasizing the interpretive significance of player engagement, the collection demonstrates how games uniquely merge narrative meaning with embodied action, transforming mythic structure into lived experience. …

The Fantasy Of J.R.R. Tolkien: Mythopoeia And The Recovery Of Creation By Robert J. Dobie, Hayden Bilbrey

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

A chapter by chapter review of Robert J. Dobie's 2024 book The Fantasy of J.R.R. Tolkien: Mythopoeia and the Recovery of Creation. The review gives a chapter by chapter breakdown and asserts that though the book is more likely for academics, its approachable coverage of Tolkien's work and philosophical ideas also makes it a great read for anyone who is a fan of Middle-earth.

The Mirror Of Desire Unbidden: Retrieving The Imago Dei In Tolkien And Late Medieval English Literature By Giovanni Carmine Costabile, Katherine Cooper Wyma

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

No abstract provided.

Russell Hoban: Faithful To The Strange By Graeme Wend-Walker, Nicholas Birns

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

This is a review of David Wend-Walker's critical book on the fiction of Russell Hoban.

Schools Of Magic: Learning In Children’S And Young Adult Fantasy Fiction By Megan H. Suttie, Sara Landaverde

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

This review examines Schools of Magic: Learning in Children’s and Young Adult Fantasy Fiction, in which Megan H. Suttie argues that fantastic school narrative exists as a distinct subgenre requiring a holistic critical framework. Reading magical school texts simultaneously as school stories, fantasy narratives, and representations of educational institutions, Suttie demonstrates how such works present processes of ideological formation, social reproduction, and readerly critique. Through chapters focusing on J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, Patrick Rothfuss's Kingkiller Chronicle, Lev Grossman's Magicians trilogy, and Terry Pratchett's Tiffany Aching novels, Suttie illustrates the flexibility of her model across various fantasy texts. This …

Urban Fantasy: Exploring Modernity Through Magic, By Stefan Ekman, Phillip Fitzsimmons

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

No abstract provided.

Alice In Wonderland: Norton Critical Edition, Edited By Donald J. Gray, James Hamby

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

No abstract provided.

Imagining The Celtic Past In Modern Fantasy, Edited By Dimitra Fimi And Alistair J.P. Sims, Giovanni Carmine Costabile

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

No abstract provided.

A Real Taste For Fairy-Stories By Verlyn Flieger, Douglas C. Kane

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

No abstract provided.

In Memoriam: Colin Duriez, Justin W. Wiggins

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

Noted fantasy scholar Colin Duriez passed away in November 2025. He wrote on Lewis, Tolkien, the Inklings as a group, Dorothy L. Sayers, and other topics, and worked as a publisher and editor with Intervarsity Press, as well as teaching and lecturing.

In Memoriam: James Como, Anne-Frédérique Mochel-Caballero

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

Noted Lewis scholar James Como passed away in November 2025; this essay reviews his career and his warm personal interactions with the author.

Recollections And Reflections On The Book That Created Itself, Verlyn Flieger

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

Too long for a fairy tale, too fanciful for a novel, too adult for children, too juvenile for adults. Dearth of sex bars it as romance and its cast of Elves and Dwarves—oh, and Hobbits—bans it as realism. For lack of a better word we call it fantasy, but the fact is that until The Lord of the Rings’ incursion onto the scene in 1954 there existed no such formal category or critical term by which to classify this ground-breaking work. How did The Lord of the Rings create the modern category of fantasy?

Tolkien’S Thomist Triad: A High Medieval Response To Contemporary Jus Ad Bellum, Jeffrey S. Dixon

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

This paper reviews the development of the component of just war theory dealing with whether it is just to wage a war in the first place (jus ad bellum) from the early medieval to early modern eras and compares its principles to J.R.R. Tolkien’s novels about Middle-Earth. Tolkien’s views on the concept of jus ad bellum can be dated to a specific point in the medieval era, just before a number of modern, consequentialist criteria were added to Catholic thought on just war. I conclude that Tolkien’s fictional works permit broader justifications for war than do most modern just war …

From Viðkenning To Valarindi: The Enigma Of Goldberry And The River-Woman, Derek Simon

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

THIS IS A TWO-PART ARTICLE. IN ORDER TO READ OR DOWNLOAD THE OTHER PART, FOLLOW THE LINK AT THE END OF THIS ABSTRACT.

Building upon the previous examination of the eddic and skaldic contours of Goldberry’s River kenning names, this reading of Goldberry’s enigma focuses on the mythological referents of her kinship relations and their narrative consistency in the legendarium.  Tending to the intrinsic connection between “[t]he incarnate mind, the tongue, and the tale” (Tolkien, On Fairy Stories, 41), I contend that the poetics of kenning diction sustain if not demand a reading of the River-woman references mythologically through …

The Significance Of Ioreth, Wise Woman Of Gondor, In J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord Of The Rings, Jane Beal Phd

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

Using key ideas from the field of Narrative Medicine, this essay considers the significance of Ioreth in her role as a wise-woman (midwife) and healer of Gondor. J.R.R. Tolkien developed the character of Ioreth from the static fairy-tale type of the “Wise Old Woman” to a dynamic minor character in her own right in The Lord of the Rings. He gave her a defining characteristic of talkativeness, and he purposefully attributed to her prophetic utterances of proverb, rhyme, and instruction that positively influenced those around her, including her healthcare colleagues Gandalf, Aragorn, and the herb-master, her unnamed kinswoman from the …

Galadriel: A Source Of Lore For The Silmarillion, Zachary Rhone

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

Tolkien provided evidence to suggest that Galadriel, with her extensive experience and knowledge, is a significant source of lore for the Silmarillion. Galadriel represents several characteristics that Tolkien valued in his historians and lore masters; accordingly, the story of the Silmarillion provides information and narrative perspectives unique to Galadriel. Furthermore, throughout Tolkien's writing of the Silmarillion and especially near the end of his life, he continued to develop and further incorporate Galadriel into his legendarium even when concepts for other historians and loremasters faded.

“The Silmaril Was Bound Upon His Brow”: Elwing And Eärendil And The “Living Light” Of Love, Douglas Charles Kane

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

This paper shows the development of the story of Eärendil and Elwing from the time that Tolkien was first inspired by the lines “Hail Earendel, brightest of angels above middle-earth sent unto men” in a medieval Anglo-Saxon poem to Eärendil becoming the Evening Star, most beloved of the Elves, through the agency of Elwing's supportive love and the "Living Light" of the Silmaril recovered by Beren and Lúthien. It provides an example of how "the small gaps, contradictions, and inconsistencies in Tolkien’s work contribute substantially to readers’ experiencing it as somehow different than other pieces of literature, and how the …

Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Gethsemane: Christian Art And Tradition In The Passion Of Albus Dumbledore, John Anthony Dunne

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

This essay contends that Professor Dumbledore drinking a potion from a goblet administered by Harry Potter in the cave from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince evokes Jesus’s prayer in Gethsemane from the Gospels and his request that "the cup" be removed from him. Even though the Gospels portray Jesus all alone, and Dumbledore has Harry with him, I argue that Harry Potter evokes the expanded Lukan account of Gethsemane, which contains a textually uncertain passage about an angel ministering to him (Luke 22.43–44). I argue further that this Lukan text informs Harry Potter specifically as mediated through visual representations …

The Soldier’S Stigmata, Part Ii: Figura, The Four Senses Of Interpretation, And Other Matters In Lois Mcmaster Bujold’S “The Borders Of Infinity”, Andrew Hallam

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

THIS IS A TWO-PART ARTICLE. IN ORDER TO READ OR DOWNLOAD THE OTHER PART, FOLLOW THE LINK AT THE END OF THIS ABSTRACT.

This article will explore the connection between Lois McMaster Bujold’s novella “The Borders of Infinity,” the Aristotelian theory of habitus as developed further in the letters of the Apostle Paul and by the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, and the four senses of interpretation of scripture first conceived in antiquity and later refined by medieval philosophers. Habitus as a durable disposition, state, or condition (Aristotle) is a structured and structuring social practice or set of social practices (Bourdieu) that …

Pier’S Barn And Aslan’S Stable: Satire And Sublimity In Langland’S Piers Plowman And Lewis’S The Last Battle, Tiffany E. Schubert

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

The stable in The Last Battle is rather mysterious. It seems a random bit of architecture plopped in Narnia, whose primary structures are cozy caves or castles by the sea. Of course, the stable is an important Christian symbol, the humble birthplace of Christ himself. Nevertheless, Lewis’s stable does not function in any straightforward way as the Narnian version of “Away in a Manger.” Rather, it is a place of deception and violence, housing the false Aslan and serving as the focal point of an apocalyptic battle that ends with the destruction of all Narnia. There is medieval precedent for …

Editorial, Janet Croft

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

I do keep saying that this is the biggest Mythlore issue ever, then topping it an issue or two later. With Mythlore #148, I’m afraid I’ve done it again.

We switch up our usual order a bit this time and start with C.S. Lewis. Tiffany E. Schubert explores the parallels between the medieval poem Piers Plowman and The Last Battle, and shows how Lewis used this source. Joseph Weigel systematically examines the angelology of the Space Trilogy, attempting to pin down exactly how we should conceive of the eldils.

Critical Explorations: Using Feminist And Artful Inquiry In An Adolescent Literature Class, Emily L. Freeman

Feminist Pedagogy

Using feminist and artful inquiry in teacher education courses creates spaces of resistance to normative modes of sharing knowledge. The Critical Explorations project is the final assignment for a required young adult and adolescent literature course and requires that students engage in creative modes of expression when sharing their research. The teaching activity opens up new possibilities for engagement with texts and research questions that works to disrupt traditional English Language Arts assessments.

Tiny But Moral: How "The Adventures Of Little Tiny And The White Mouse" Portrays Children’S Moral And Social Responsibilities In The Civil War Era, Abigail Hagopian

CAFE Symposium 2026

Estimated to have been published between 1860 and 1866, The Adventures of Little Tiny and the White Mouse was one of many works for children published by Thomas W. Strong in New York during the American Civil War. The eight-page picture book examines morality and consequences through the misfortunate adventures of a young, yet moral, abnormally small boy named Little Tiny. The youngest of a Broom Maker’s three sons, Tiny’s jealous older brothers sell him to a circus, where he performs alongside a myriad of animals. Missing his father, the animals jump through a series of hoops to help Tiny …

Learning For “Serious Employment”: Reinforcing The Social Hierarchy Through Anna Barbauld And John Aikin’S “Things To Be Learned”, Grace Sewell

CAFE Symposium 2026

This poster will explore the role of class in Anna Barbauld and John Aikin’s short story “Things To Be Learned.” “Things To Be Learned” was published in the early 19th century and follows a dialogue between mother and daughter as the two discuss the importance of education. It will be argued that through their use of practical diction, lack of interesting visual components, and rigid didactic structure, Barbauld and Aikin aim to promote the maintenance of a social hierarchy based on class. Additionally, an exploration of Anna Barbauld's own thoughts on female education will be included to develop this analysis.

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, …