The Early Reader in Children Literature and Culture ― Theorizing Books for Beginning Readers

This is the first volume to consider the popular literary category of Early Readers – books written and designed for children who are just beginning to read independently. It argues that Early Readers deserve more scholarly attention and careful thought because they are, for many younger readers, their first opportunity to engage with a work of literature on their own, to feel a sense of mastery over a text, and to experience pleasure from the act of reading independently. Using interdisciplinary approaches that draw upon and synthesize research being done in education, child psychology, sociology, cultural studies, and children’s literature, the volume visits Early Readers from a variety of angles: as teaching tools; as cultural artifacts that shape cultural and individual subjectivity; as mass produced products sold to a niche market of parents, educators, and young children; and as aesthetic objects, works of literature and art with specific conventions. Examining the reasons such books are so popular with young readers, as well as the reasons that some adults challenge and censor them, the volume considers the ways Early Readers contribute to the construction of younger children as readers, thinkers, consumers, and as gendered, raced, classed subjects. It also addresses children’s texts that have been translated and sold around the globe, examining them as part of an increasingly transnational children’s media culture that may add to or supplant regional, ethnic, and national children’s literatures and cultures. While this collection focuses mostly on books written in English and often aimed at children living in the US, it is important to acknowledge that these Early Readers are a major US cultural export, influencing the reading habits and development of children across the globe.

Jennifer M. Miskec is an Associate Professor of Children’s Literature at Longwood University, USA, where she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in children's and YA literature. She is the director of the Children's Literature minor, involved in the Honors program, and runs a Children's Culture study abroad program in Croatia. Her publications include articles on gender, ballet, and picture books; self-injurious behavior and YA literature; YA adaptions of Western classics; and the Ivy and Bean series. She is also an active board member of the Children’s Literature Association, serving as Secretary since 2011.

Annette Wannamaker is Professor of Children’s Literature in the Children’s Literature Program in the Department of English Language and Literature at Eastern Michigan University, USA, where she teaches courses about illustrated texts, children’s and adolescent media, criticism and theory of children’s literature and culture, and young adult literature. She is North American Editor-in-Chief of Children’s Literature in Education and has edited several collections of academic essays. She is the author of Boys in Children’s Literature and Popular Culture: Masculinity, Abjection, and the Fictional Child (Routledge, 2008) and of various articles focused on literary and cultural studies. She is an active member of the Children’s Literature Association, serving as the 2015-2016 ChLA President.