Children's and Young Adult Literature Commons^™

Leaving Neverland For Narnia: Childhood And Gender In Peter Pan, The Secret Garden, And The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, Calabria Turner

English MA Theses

British gender expectations are often epitomized in mature adults, either in society or within novels, but in Peter Pan, The Secret Garden, and The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe gender roles are interpreted by the child protagonists. J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan inhabits the world of the Neverland, but the gender roles of Victorian England follow them from London to the home below the tree where Peter, Wendy, her brothers, and the Lost Boys reside in a pseudo-domestic sphere. Peter often engages in literal discussion of what it means to become an English man, while Wendy lives …

A Friend Beyond The Screen, Raymart Pontemayor

Laurus: Undergraduate Literature Journal of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln

This essay highlights the importance of friendship through online communication which is not often seen in today's society. Most friendships occur on a real life basis, however there is a layer of intimacy when distance is involved. As a result, long distance relationships build a stronger foundation between friends that is underappreciated.

Unfound, Samuel C. Kessler

Sierpinski’s Square

"Look on past the horizon and there; rest your eyes then. But alas, this place you cannot see, but you feel it from your core, tis what you seek, surely there; indeed, yes, that is where it rests; but "it" is not, and "where" is never near nor far, for you forget in onlook as you seek, the thing that lies beneath Your feet A dwelling place Of peace unfound."

What Are Slaves?, Sarah Yarbrough, Sami Solberg

United States Race and Childhood Fiction

What Are Slaves? is about an eight-year-old, biracial boy named Danny who visits a historical antebellum era plantation with his mother. While observing the now present day museum, a picture of slave children working in a field catches Danny’s eye. Curious and having never learned about slaves, Danny inquires to his mother about what the children his age are doing. Danny’s mother gives him an explanation of what slaves are and how they ended up in their situation. Going from one photo exhibit to another, Danny asks his mother for reasons regarding the slaves’ appearance, workload, and education, all of …

Mrs. Venus's Class Exploring Jim Crow, Kiana Reece, Sara Leach, Emily Duggan, Zoe Boals, Tucker Mcclendon

United States Race and Childhood Fiction

Mrs. Venus’s Class Exploring Jim Crow. This story revolves around a classroom on a different planet full of alien children who are learning about American history, specifically the Jim Crow era. The teacher and the students discuss the injustices and oppression experienced by African Americans and other non-white citizens. The next day, American student Jimmy Turner joins them, and he is faced with animosity by some of the alien children in the class. The alien teacher points to the similarities in the children’s prejudice against the human and the prejudice that was prominent during the Jim Crow era.

Sky's Limit, Cheyenne Pearson, Caleb Dockery, Kristen Elliot, Lucas Gallon, Houston Nichols

United States Race and Childhood Fiction

Sky’s Limit is about a 5-year-old biracial girl named Sky, growing up during the Civil Rights period. As she reaches the age of understanding, Sky begins to wonder why her mom cannot join her and her dad on their adventures. One day, her dad takes her to the ice cream shop and Sky realizes that no one else looks like her, nor do the other moms look like her mom. She eventually questions her dad about why her mom can never get ice cream with them. Her dad then reaches for her hand and begins to describe the racial tension …

The Unexpected Alliance, Chase Clark, Roman Penney, Olivia Matlock, Jacob Davis, Carter Kilpatrick

United States Race and Childhood Fiction

An Unexpected Alliance, which is set in the United States during WWII. The main character of our book is an adventurous seven-year-old girl named Betty whose father is fighting in the war. To help her father win the war, Betty sets off one day to go ‘scrapping’ for metal. Along the way, she meets an African American boy named Stanley who is also out ‘scrapping’ to help his brother who is away at war. Despite their societal differences, the unlikely duo combines their resources to not only find scrap metal to help their loved ones, they also develop a friendship …

Encouraging A "Kaleidoscope Of Views": Graphic Literature As A Tool For Informative Text Comprehension In The Secondary English Classroom, Chelsea Ellen Bergmann

Graduate Theses

Over the past decade, graphic literature has fueled the conversations of theory and criticism among scholars and educators alike. With the critical need to teach informative texts and college-ready skills in secondary schools, the debate arises on how these mediums can be further used to extend the capabilities of young readers in a 21st century global community. Thus far, the scholarship on graphic literature in the secondary English classroom proves to be helpful in certain areas, while revealing a gap in others. Missing wholly are discussions about targeted reading comprehension skills particularly related to informative texts and their writer’s purpose, …

“The Childish, The Transformative, And The Queer”: Queer Interventions As Praxis In Children’S Cartoons, Heather Wright

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art, Scott McCloud considers “the simplified reality of the cartoon,” establishing a definition and theory for the medium (30). McCloud believes that cartoons possess “a special power” that is tied to their unique ability to “focus our attention on an idea” (31). Put simply, there is something about cartoons that allows for an easy exchange of concepts. Cartoons can teach. Using cartoons, a general term, to refer to both comics and animation, this thesis examines the transformative power of queer world building and intervention in recent children’s cartoons and how it functions, and can …

Connected Spirits: Adolescent Females And Animal Agents, Elizabeth A. Parrish

English Department Theses

The novels The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers and The Welsh Girl by Peter Ho Davies create a unique opportunity to investigate human and animal relationships given the similarity of their time frames and main characters. Both novels feature adolescent females struggling to resolve their identities against the backdrop of WWII. Frankie Addams in The Member of the Wedding and Esther Evans in The Welsh Girl share the additional characteristics of deceased mothers, distant fathers, and contacts with animals. Because these books are bildungsromans, they permit a comparative analysis as separate experiments in feminine growth with attention …

How To Be The Perfect Asian Wife!, Sophia Hill

Art and Art History Honors Projects

“How to be the Perfect Asian Wife” critiques exploitative power systems that assault female bodies of color in intersectional ways. This work explores strategies of healing and resistance through inserting one’s own narrative of flourishing rather than surviving, while reflecting violent realities. Three large drawings mimic pervasive advertisement language and presentation reflecting the oppressive strategies used to contain women of color. Created with charcoal, watercolor, and ink, these 'advertisements' contrast with an interactive rice bag filled with comics of my everyday experiences. These documentations compel viewers to reflect on their own participation in systems of power.

Grammar Implementation In The Classroom, Drew Griffin

Showcase of Undergraduate Research and Creative Endeavors (SOURCE)

Prior to 2015, grammar in the South Carolina standards only required students to learn basic sentence types and mechanics. However, the introduction of Common Core into the state standards now requires much more thorough instruction. But is that instruction taking place? Gartland and Smolkin define grammar as “a set of rules that explain how a system operates, and in language, this system typically refers to syntax (the arrangement of words and phrases to create well-formed sentences in a language) and morphology (the study of how words are formed in a language).” Proper grammar instruction is essential for students to be …

Exploring New Frontiers In Children's Literature, Matthew Vondersaar, Kylee Dodson, Byanka Ramos, Mariah Hightower

Collin College Undergraduate Interdisciplinary Student Research Conference

Panel Chair: Sean Ferrier-Watson, Collin College

Our panel will explore various issued related to children’s literature, but will specifically focus on the way old and new children’s literature are being adapted into cinematic and digital productions. We will also explore the way fairy tales are used to incorporate a wide array of social issues into child culture. The panelists have each prepared papers that explore the issues touching on new frontiers in children’s literature, ranging from classic fairy tales to contemporary comic books.

Children's And Adolescent Literature: A Roundtable Discussion, Hayley Pugh, Kinsleigh Sawatsky, Abigail Welsh, Matthew Vondersaar, Peizhao Li, Mike Morrison, Simiul Haque, Michaela Thompson, Jordan Abualijazer, Ife Adeyinka, Hannah Neely, Ashley Rush

Collin College Undergraduate Interdisciplinary Student Research Conference

Chairs: Khimen Cooper, Collin College; Searn Ferrier-Watson, Collin College; Susan Stewart, Texas A&M -- Commerce; Michelle Tvete, Texas A&M -- Commerce

“The Only Way Out Is In”: Negotiating Identity Through Narrative In The House On Mango Street And The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao, Brianna E. Taylor

Steeplechase: An ORCA Student Journal

While aimed at vastly different audiences, Sandra Cisneros’s beloved coming-of-age story The House on Mango Street and Junot Díaz’s Pulitzer Prize-winning debut novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao both uniquely capture the complexities of navigating the hyphenated territory between their respective Mexican-American and Dominican-American identities. Cisneros engages readers with the simple yet profound narrative voice of Esperanza in a series of vignettes that subtly reveal a growing consciousness of her role as a young Mexican-American woman and her creative consciousness as an artist. Through the multifaceted narrative perspective of Yunior, Díaz skillfully weaves together “ghetto nerd” Oscar de …

English People. Owen Barfield; Narnia And The Fields Of Arbol. Matthew Dickerson And David O'Hara; And The Mythic Dimension. Joseph Campbell, Phillip Fitzsimmons

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

Three books, written about differing themes and released decades apart, still manage to work together to present a complex picture of the images of mythology and their effect upon the human race. The books are English People, a 1929 novel by Owen Barfield; Narnia and the Fields of Arbol, a 2009 study of environmentalism in the works of C.S. Lewis, by Matthew Dickerson and David O’Hara; and The Mythic Dimension, a selection of essays spanning almost three decades by Joseph Campbell.

Detecting Wimsey: Papers On Dorothy L. Sayer's Detective Fiction. Nancy-Lou Patterson. Ed. Emily E. Auger And Janet Brennan Croft, Joe R. Christopher

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

No abstract provided.

Letting Sleeping Abnormalities Lie: Lovecraft And The Futility Of Divination [Article], Carol S. Matthews

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

By way of divinatory dreams, astrology, geomancy, or other means, the Lovecraft quester discovers that universe is more deeply frightening than anything he could possibly have imagined. Lovecraft’s lack of faith in divination practices, not because of their inefficacy, but rather due to his conviction that humans lack the essential capacity to understand their lowly place in the universe, is ironically not shared by many of his admirers and followers, who have created magical and divination systems galore since Lovecraft’s demise.

Editorial, Janet Brennan Croft

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

This issue of Mythlore is the first to include a special section since I became editor in 2006. “Divination in Mythopoeic Fantasy” is the topic, and Emily E. Auger is the guest editor for the content starting on page 160. Her editorial describes the theme and the articles and notes included in this section in more detail.

Our regular content begins with an essay by Patricia Monk on Tyrion Lannister, a central character in George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, whom Monk describes as a fulcrum point within the series. In her reading, the dwarf Tyrion’s experiences …

Bilbo Baggins And The Forty Thieves: The Reworking Of Folktale Motifs In The Hobbit (And The Lord Of The Rings), Giovanni Carmine Costabile

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

The Hobbit is undisputedly influenced by Germanic sources such as Beowulf, the Völsunga Saga and both the Elder Edda and the Prose Edda. While there is no reason to deny this result of criticism, I argue that acknowledging the aforementioned sources should not constitute a reason to deny the potentiality of other sources from other cultural areas. The similarities between The Hobbit and a famous tale from the Arabian Nights, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, offer a chance to investigate a much wider potential field wherein to look for shared motifs when only …

Ursula K. Le Guin: An Appreciation, David Bratman

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

It seems appropriate in the aftermath of her death, which occurred January 22, 2018, at the age of 88, to name Ursula K. Le Guin as the most consequential writer in the fantastic mode of the last half century. Her work spans a range from traditionalist European fantasy to hard-edged social science fiction on the effect of technology on society, without ever drawing a firm line between categories. Le Guin never disavowed genre, but refused to be bound by it. She used it as a tool to express herself.

Ursula K. Le Guin In Mythlore, Janet Brennan Croft

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

Ursula K. Le Guin, whose career and influence are examined in brief in the preceding note by David Bratman, has long been a writer of interest to the readers of Mythlore and members of the Mythopoeic Society. She was the Author Guest of Honor at Mythcon 19 (the theme of which was “Legends for a New Land: Fantasy in America”) at Berkeley CA in 1988, and was a finalist for the Myth and Fantasy Studies Award in 2011 and 2012 for her essay collection Cheek by Jowl (Aqueduct Press, 2009).

C.S. Lewis And The Arts: Creativity In The Shadowlands. Ed. Rod Miller, Michael D. Prevett

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

No abstract provided.

Editorial: Divination And Prophecy In Mythopoeic Literature [Article], Emily E. Auger

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

No abstract provided.

An Annotated List Of Fantasy Novels Incorporating Tarot (1968-1989) [Notes], Emily E. Auger

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

This selective list includes abstracts of each novel or series and how the author incorporates the Tarot or Tarot imagery.

Divination And Prophecy In Jrr Tolkien's The Lord Of The Rings: Some Observations [Notes], Robert F. Tredray

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

Lists and describes prophetic statements and poems, the use of the palantíri in divining far-off events, and the place of prophecy in Middle-earth. Examples of prophecy are mostly used to establish mood; while examples of divination play a more prominent part in the narrative and demand moral decisions on the part of the characters. Thus they not only are important plot devices, but they also reveal to the reader important aspects of the moral nature of Tolkien's Middle-Earth.

Lgbtq+ Children’S Picture Books In Ontario Public Libraries, Ashleigh Yates-Mackay, Danielle Bettridge, Alissa Droog, Alyssa Martin

FIMULAW

Diverse representation in picture books is important for the wellbeing of children and families; this includes LGBTQ+ representation, a frequently contested area of literature. Our poster identifies 33 of the most frequently recommended picture books with LGBTQ+ representations and reports on their inclusion in 40 selected Ontario Public Libraries. We then compared these results with five socioeconomic factors for each library: size of population served, the size of the print collection, the size of the materials budget, the average total median household income and the last decade of provincial election results for the riding in which the main branch of …

“There Must Always Be A Thor”: Disruption Of Super Heroic Masculinities In Marvel’S Thor: The Goddess Of Thunder (2014), Kiera M. Gaswint

Ray Browne Conference on Cultural and Critical Studies (2015-2021)

As the popularity of the superhero film genre continues to grow, more attention is being drawn towards the genre as a way to enter cultural conversations regarding representations in popular culture of gender, sexuality, race, and class, among other things. This popularity of the genre among differing age ranges and demographics calls for an investigation and analysis of the comic book genre, superheroes, and representation. Given the popularity of this genre, I plan to argue that Thor: The Goddess of Thunder (2014) offers a unique reading of gender constructs and masculinity.

Whereas characters come and go within their respective universes …

Deconstructing Native American Stereotypes Through The Reading Of Contemporary Multicultural Literature, Morgan Mcdougall

Ray Browne Conference on Cultural and Critical Studies (2015-2021)

This project will look specifically at the novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie. Some of the questions to be addressed throughout the project include: what does it mean to be the “Other,” how can minority multicultural literature be used to help students deconstruct racial stereotypes, and what are the systems in place that have formed the division between “us” and the “other?” I will begin with a historical account of interactions with Native Americans within the United States, beginning with initial encounters and moving up to modern times. Providing this historical information will help …

The Best Children's Books Of The Year [2018 Edition], Bank Street College Of Education. Children's Book Committee

The Center for Children's Literature

Includes more than 600 titles chosen by the Children’s Book Committee as the best of the best published in 2017. In choosing books for the annual list, committee members consider literary quality and excellence of presentation as well as the potential emotional impact of the books on young readers. Other criteria include credibility of characterization and plot, authenticity of time and place, age suitability, positive treatment of ethnic and religious differences, and the absence of stereotypes.