Divided Worlds: Studies in Children's Literature

Divided Worlds: Studies in Children’s Literature, a collection of essays co-edited by Dr Mary Shine Thompson & Valerie Coghlan, was launched on 29 May in the Senior Common Room, Trinity College Dublin.  The book contains essays by members of St Patrick's College academic staff, including Celia Keenan, director of the MA in Children's Literature; historian Dr Dáire Keogh; cultural historian Dr Julie Anne Stevens; and Dr Carole Dunbar and Robert Dunbar, members of the MA in Children's Literature team.  Contributors also include graduates of the College as well as contributors from Italy, France and the USA.

This volume, the third collection of studies in children's literature, explores the political, social and cultural divisions that dominate children's books, ranging over Irish and international topics and texts.  Articles on the fiction of Katherine Tynan, Maria Edgeworth and Somerville & Ross, as well as modern Ulster fiction and contemporary children's publishing, are indicative of the range of Irish material.  The international focus extends from Luigi Bertelli's treatment of fascism and Gianni Rodari's communism to the English contexts of Cecil Alexander's English hymns.  Rosemary Sutcliffe's Roman Britain series is revisited to explore its masculinities, and gendered divisions are the subject of a review of Oisin McGann's recent fantasy fiction.

 

 

 

Last Updated: Thursday June 07 2007