Maria Nikolajeva

Elisabeth Cardoso

Provocativo e perspicaz, Poder, Voz e Subjetividade na Literatura Infantil, de Maria Nikolajeva, discute as possibilidades de uma literatura infantil e juvenil de qualidade que seja capaz de atribuir um poder contestatório à infância. Pois a vasta maioria das obras lidas por crianças e jovens é escrita, ilustrada, selecionada, comprada, ensinada e mediada por adultos, sem que haja uma reflexão sobre o quanto essa literatura constitui-se como espaço de opressão, de imposição de perspectivas sociais, emocionais e políticas dos adultos – seus valores, desejos, medos, preconceitos, limitações, linguagens e estéticas. Nikolajeva explora alguns exemplos disso tanto em obras clássicas (como Alice no País das Maravilhas) como modernas (como Harry Potter e Pooh) e argumenta em torno da ideia de que a criança e o jovem formam um grupo sociologicamente minoritário (tal como as mulheres, os afrodescendentes, a comunidade LGBTQIA+, a população periférica, os indígenas) que sofre com o silenciamento de sua "voz e subjetividade". Ela conclui que, uma vez que sendo adultos não podemos abolir normatividade adulta – o que seria subverter nossa própria experiência –, podemos, por meio de personagens e situações que transitam entre o grotesco, o mágico, o surreal e o inesperado na literatura infantil, conscientizar os jovens leitores de que as normas e regras adultas não são absolutas. Para isso, diz ela, precisamos criar formas de esclarecer, denunciar questões normalizadas pelo predomínio de valores do mundo adulto. Poder, Voz e Subjetividade fornece ferramentas pelas quais podemos seguir nessa tarefa de maneira mais coerente e consistente do que antes.

Poder, Voz e Subjetividade na Literatura Infantil

Introduction to the Theory of Children's Literature

The Use of Magical Patterns in Fantasy for Children

The Magic Code

Bilderbokens pusselbitar

Barnbokens byggklossar

In this radically new approach to text typology, Maria Nikolajeva examines the depiction of time in literature for children.

Time in Children's Literature

From Mythic to Linear

Sedan Barnbokens byggklossar skrevs för tjugo år sedan har barnlitteraturens värld förändrats på ett sätt som var omöjligt att förutsäga och en ny upplaga känns mer angelägen än någonsin. I den mångfacetterade utgivningen har boken en bestämd plats med sin undersökning av berättartekniken i äldre och nyare barnböcker. Denna tredje upplaga har både utökats och kortats ned. Harry Potter-romanerna intar en framträdande plats, inte bara för att böckerna är välkända och ingår i många högskolekurser i barnlitteratur, utan även för att de utgör ett tacksamt material för olika diskussioner kring barnlitteraturens beståndsdelar. Den mest framträdande kompletteringen har skett inom området kognitiv narratologi, som både anknyter direkt till bokens huvudtanke och är ett av de mest dynamiska forskningsfälten inom den internationella barnlitteraturforskningen. Av de övriga nyare teorierna har författaren lagt särskild vikt på funktionshinderstudier, posthumanistiska studier och djurstudier, eftersom de har tillfogat barnlitteraturforskningen flera nya och spännande aspekter

How does reading fiction affect young people? How can they transfer fictional experience into real life? Why do they care about fictional characters? How does fiction enhance young people's sense of self-hood? Supported by cognitive psychology and brain research, this ground-breaking book is the first study of young readers' cognitive and emotional engagement with fiction. It explores how fiction stimulates perception, attention, imagination and other cognitive activity, and opens radically new ways of thinking about literature for young readers. Examining a wide range of texts for a young audience, from picturebooks to young adult novels, the combination of cognitive criticism and children’s literature theory also offers significant insights for literary studies beyond the scope of children’s fiction. An important milestone in cognitive criticism, the book provides convincing evidence that reading fiction is indispensable for young people’s intellectual, emotional and social maturation.

Cognitive approaches to children's literature

Reading for Learning

Carole Scott

"How Picturebooks Work is an innovative and engaging look at the interplay between text and image in a host of children's fiction. Drawing from an international range of major children's books, Maria Nikolajeva and Carole Scott discuss such favorites as Curious George and Frog and Toad Are Friends, along with the works of Maurice Sendak and Tove Jansson, to name a few. Picturebooks appeal to all readers - young and old. They provide common ground between generations and - perhaps more than any other literary or artistic medium - shape the representation and socialization of children. With 116 illustrations, How Picturebooks Work offers the reader a new methodology, groundbreaking theories, terminology, and working tools for understanding the dynamic picturebook form."--BOOK JACKET.

How Picturebooks Work

This book considers one of the most controversial aspects of children’s and young adult literature: its use as an instrument of power. Children in contemporary Western society are oppressed and powerless, yet they are allowed, in fiction written by adults for the enlightenment and enjoyment of children, to become strong, brave, rich, powerful, and independent -- on certain conditions and for a limited time. Though the best children’s literature offers readers the potential to challenge the authority of adults, many authors use artistic means such as the narrative voice and the subject position to manipulate the child reader. Looking at key works from the eighteenth century to the present, Nikolajeva explores topics such as genre, gender, crossvocalization, species, and picturebook images. Contemporary power theories including social and cultural studies, carnival theory, feminism, postcolonial and queer studies, and narratology are also considered, in order to demonstrate how a balance is maintained between the two opposite inherent goals of children’s literature: to empower and to educate the child.

Power, Voice and Subjectivity in Literature for Young Readers

Mary Hilton

Offering a wide range of critical perspectives, this volume explores the moral, ideological and literary landscapes in fiction and other cultural productions aimed at young adults. Topics examined are adolescence and the natural world, nationhood and identity, the mapping of sexual awakening onto postcolonial awareness, hybridity and trans-racial romance, transgressive sexuality, the sexually abused adolescent body, music as a code for identity formation, representations of adolescent emotion, and what neuroscience research tells us about young adult readers, writers, and young artists. Throughout, the volume explores the ways writers configure their adolescent protagonists as awkward, alienated, rebellious and unhappy, so that the figure of the young adult becomes a symbol of wider political and societal concerns. Examining in depth significant contemporary novels, including those by Julia Alvarez, Stephenie Meyer, Tamora Pierce, Malorie Blackman and Meg Rosoff, among others, Contemporary Adolescent Literature and Culture illuminates the ways in which the cultural constructions 'adolescent' and 'young adult fiction' share some of society's most painful anxieties and contradictions.

The Emergent Adult

Contemporary Adolescent Literature and Culture

"How Picturebooks Work is an innovative and engaging look at the interplay between text and image in a host of children's fiction. Drawing from an international range of major children's books, Maria Nikolajeva and Carole Scott discuss such favorites as Curious George and Frog and Toad Are Friends, along with the works of Maurice Sendak and Tove Jansson, to name a few. Picturebooks appeal to all readers - young and old. They provide common ground between generations and - perhaps more than any other literary or artistic medium - shape the representation and socialization of children. With 116 illustrations, How Picturebooks Work offers the reader a new methodology, groundbreaking theories, terminology, and working tools for understanding the dynamic picturebook form."--Jacket.

Scholars from 10 countries address children's literature as a literary art form and provide an international perspective on its history and evolution.

Aspects and Issues in the History of Children's Literature

This work fills the void by providing students of childrens literature with a comprehensible and easy-to-use analytical tool kit, showing through concrete demonstration how each tool might best be used. Contemporary literary theories discussed include semiotics and hermeneutics, structuralism and narratology, feminist and postcolonial theory, psychoanalysis, and reader-response, each adjusted to suit the specifics of childrens literature.

An Introduction

Aesthetic Approaches to Children's Literature

Now available in paperback! Until now, there was no theoretical research of character in children's fiction and very few comprehensive theoretical studies of literary characters in general. In her latest intellectual foray, the author of From Mythic to Linear ponders the art of characterization. Through a variety of critical perspectives, she uncovers the essential differences between story ('what we are told') and discourse ('how we are told'), and carefully distinguishes between how these are employed in children's fiction and in general fiction. Yet another masterful work by a leading figure in contemporary criticism.

The Rhetoric of Character in Children's Literature

Sandra L. Beckett

Beyond Babar: The European Tradition in Children's Literature examines in depth eleven of the most celebrated European children's novels in substantial, critical essays written by well-known international scholars. This approach provides a comprehensive discussion of the selected works from a variety of theoretical perspectives. Each essay offers a critical introduction to the text that can serve as a point of departure for literary scholars, professors of children's literature, primary and secondary school teachers, and librarians who are interested in texts that cross languages and cultures.

The European Tradition in Children's Literature

Beyond Babar

Originally published in 1996. A detailed analysis of the art of children's literature covering world literature for children, children's literature as a canonical art form, the history of children's literature from a semiotic perspective, and epic, polyphony, chronotope, intertextuality, and metafiction in children's literature.

Maria Nikolajeva

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