This collection takes informed and scholarly readers to the utmost frontier of children's literature criticism, from the intricate worlds of children's poetry, picturebooks and video games to the new theoretical constellations of critical plant studies, non-fiction studies and big data analyses of literature.

Table of Contents

• Introduction: Where Have We Come From? Where Are We Heading? Clémentine Beauvais and Maria Nikolajeva
• Part I: Contemporary Directions in Children's Literature Scholarship
• 1 Teaching the Conflicts: Diverse Responses to Diverse Children's Books Karen Coats
• 2 Posthumanism: Rethinking ‘The Human’ in Modern Children's Literature Victoria Flanagan
• 3 Animal Studies Zoe Jaques
• 4 Spatiality in Fantasy for Children Jane Suzanne Carroll
• 5 A Question of Scale: Zooming Out and Zooming In on Feminist Ecocriticism Alice Curry
• 6 Age Studies and Children's Literature Vanessa Joosen
• 7 Carnality in Adolescent Literature Lydia Kokkola
• 8 Cognitive Narratology and Adolescent Fiction Roberta Seelinger Trites
• 9 Empirical Approaches to Place and the Construction of Adolescent Identities Erin Spring
• 10 Picturebooks and Situated Readers: The Intersections of Text, Image, Culture and Response Evelyn Arizpe
• 11 Re-memorying: A New Phenomenological Methodology in Children's Literature Studies Alison Waller
• Part II: Contemporary Trends in Children's and Young Adult Literature
• 12 Canons and Canonicity Anja Müller
• 13 Seriality in Children's Literature Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer
• 14 Counterfactual Historical Fiction for Children and Young Adults Catherine Butler
• 15 Pattern, Texture and Print: New Technology, Old Aesthetic in Contemporary Picturebook-Making Martin Salisbury
• 16 Telling Stories in Different Formats: New Directions in Digital Stories for Children Junko Yokota
• 17 Multimodality and Multiliteracies: Production and Reception Margaret Mackey
• 18 Serendipity, Independent Publishing and Translation Flow: Recent Translations for Children in the UK Gillian Lathey
• 19 The Picturebook in Instructed Foreign Language Learning Contexts Sandie Mourão
• Part III: Unmapped Territories
• 20 Next of Kin: ‘The Child’ and ‘The Adult’ in Children's Literature Theory Today and Tomorrow Clémentine Beauvais
• 21 Critical Plant Studies and Children's Literature Lydia Kokkola
• 22 Health, Sickness and Literature for Children Jean Webb
• 23 Evolutionary Criticism and Children's Literature Maria Nikolajeva
• 24 The Genetic Study of Children's Literature Vanessa Joosen
• 25 Distant Reading and Children's Literature Eugene Giddens
• 26 Hogwarts versus Svalbard: Cultures, Literacies and Game Adaptations of Children's Literature Andrew Burn
• 27 Hybrid Novels for Children and Young Adults Eve Tandoi
• 28 Cyberspace and Story: The Impact of Digital Media on Printed Children's Books Victoria Flanagan
• Coda: Alice to the Lighthouse Revisited Juliet Dusinberre
• Notes on Contributors