LibGuides: Children's Literature and Literary Scholarship: Literary Theory & Criticism

Literary Theory & Children's Literature Criticism

Want to learn more about the craft of literary scholarship? Below is a selection of resources that can help you to develop a better understanding of what children's literature literary research and scholarship entails. For more in-depth help with finding articles, reading citations and finding cited materials, use the links in the table of contents or tabs at the top of the page to explore the resources in this guide.

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Free E-Books!

Are you looking for an e-book that we don't have or for a free downloadable ebook version of your favorite title? Try looking for it at one of these free e-book sites. Have fun exploring!

HathiTrust Digital Library
HathiTrust Digital Library is a digital preservation repository and highly functional access platform. It provides long-term preservation and access services for public domain and in copyright content from a variety of sources, including Google, the Internet Archive, Microsoft, and in-house partner institution initiatives.
Reading Europe: European culture through the book
The "Reading Europe: European culture through the book" exhibition offers a rare opportunity to view some of the hidden literary gems from the national libraries of Europe. Twenty-three countries have selected nearly a thousand works for the public to peruse. Visitors can discover everything from 18th century English bestsellers to the lost interiors of Russian palaces, all presented in an innovative and multilingual form.
ManyBooks.net
More than 29,000 eBooks available for Kindle, Nook, iPad and most other eReaders, and they're all free!
Open Library
Open Library is a project of the non-profit Internet Archive, and has been funded in part by a grant from the California State Library and the Kahle/Austin Foundation. It makes over 1,000,000 free ebook versions of classic literature available at your fingertips.
Project Gutenberg
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LibriVox
LibriVox audiobooks are free for anyone to listen to on their computers, iPods or other mobile device, or to burn onto a CD. Titles on LibriVox are in the public domain and include a wide array of classic literature.
Digital Public Library of America
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Still can't find it? Try WorldCat.

If you don't find what you need in Simmons' catalog, search WorldCat for books in other local libraries or in libraries around the world.

In-Depth Info & Examples

The library catalog is a great place to find in-depth information on topics in literary history, biographies of writers, overviews of theory and criticism and much more. Use a simple keyword search to locate information on a particular topic.

Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism Series

This series is designed to introduce students to contemporary trends in literary theory and criticism. Each volume reprints the text of a classic work of literature along with five essays that read the work from five contemporary critical perspectives.

Format & Audience

Below is a selection of critical children's literature texts that address different children's book formats and audiences.

What Else Can You Find in the Stacks?

If you're looking for literary criticism, including critical articles as well as explications of critical theory, you might be tempted to look only in the databases for journal articles. But books often collect a number of articles on a particular topic all in one place. Below is a sample of some of the many books in the library's collection that contain essays on topics in children's literature and literary criticism.

The Oxford Handbook of Children's Literature
Call Number: PR990 .O94 2011
Provides a literary history, an introduction to theoretical perspectives, a review of genres, and a selection of essays on canonical and popular works for children.
New Directions in Picturebook Research (ebook)
Call Number: PN1009.A1 N39 2010eb
Contributors take interdisciplinary approaches that integrate a variety of disciplines, including literary studies, narratology and much more.
Handbook of Research on Children's and Young Adult Literature
Call Number: PS121 .H22 2011
Describes and analyzes the different aspects of literary reading, texts, and contexts to illuminate how the book is transformed across different academic figurations.
Over the Rainbow: Queer Children's and Young Adult Literature
Call Number: PS374.H63 O84 2011
This is the first collection of essays dedicated to LGBTQ issues in children's literature.
Telling Children's Stories (ebook)
Call Number: PN1009.A1 T445 2010eb
This book is a comprehensive collection of essays that offers a broad yet in-depth assessment of narrative strategies unique to children's literature.
Global Perspectives on Death in Children's Literature (ebook)
Call Number: PN1009.5.D43 G57 2015eb
This volume visits death in children's literature from around the world, making space for the dialogue between the fields of Childhood Studies, Children's Literature, and Death Studies.
Prizing Children's Literature: The Cultural Politics of Children's Book Awards (ebook)
Call Number: PN1009.A1 P75 2017eb
This book is the first scholarly volume devoted to the analysis of Anglophone children's book awards in historical and cultural context.