Space and Place in Children’s Literature, 1789 to the Present

Focusing on questions of space and locale in children’s literature, this collection explores how metaphorical and physical space can create landscapes of power, knowledge, and identity in texts from the early nineteenth century to the present. The collection is comprised of four sections that take up the space between children and adults, the representation of 'real world' places, fantasy travel and locales, and the physical space of the children’s book-as-object. In their essays, the contributors analyze works from a range of sources and traditions by authors such as Sylvia Plath, Maria Edgeworth, Gloria Anzaldúa, Jenny Robson, C.S. Lewis, Elizabeth Knox, and Claude Ponti. While maintaining a focus on how location and spatiality aid in defining the child’s relationship to the world, the essays also address themes of borders, displacement, diaspora, exile, fantasy, gender, history, home-leaving and homecoming, hybridity, mapping, and metatextuality. With an epilogue by Philip Pullman in which he discusses his own relationship to image and locale, this collection is also a valuable resource for understanding the work of this celebrated author of children’s literature.

Introduction: Spaces of Power, Places of Play Part 1 The Spaces Between Children and Adults 1 Unstable Metaphors: Symbolic Spaces and Specific Places Peter Hunt 2 Speaking the Space between Mother and Child: Sylvia Plath, Julia Kristeva, and the Place of Children's Literature Aneesh Barai Part 2 Real-World Places 3 The Neapolitan Gouache of a Strong-Minded English Lady: 'The Little Merchants' by Maria Edgeworth Francesca Orestano 4 Borders, Pachangas, and Chicano/ a Children's Picture Books Renata Morresi 5 Sinister Ecology: Space, Environmental Justic, and Belonging in Jenny Robson's Savannah 2116 AD Elzette Steenkamp Part 3 Traversing the Imaginary 6 English Exploration and Textual Travel in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader Maria Sachiko Cecire 7 Mapping the Interior: Place, Self, and Nation in the Dreamhunter Duet Ruth Feingold 8 Journeys through Bookland's Imaginative Geography: Pleasure, Pedagogy, and the Child Reader Margot Stafford Part 4 Book Space 9 The Story Unfolds: Intertwined Space and Time in the Victorian Children's Panorama Hannah Field 10 The Child's Imaginary World: The Spaces of Claude Ponti's Picture Books Catherine Renaud Epilogue: Inside, Outside, Elsewhere Philip Pullman

Maria Sachiko Cecire is Assistant Professor of Literature and Director of the Experimental Humanities concentration at Bard College, USA; Hannah Field is Lecturer in Victorian literature at the University of Sussex, UK; Kavita Mudan Finn is a visiting assistant professor at Southern New Hampshire University, USA; Malini Roy is a freelance writer and editor in Germany.