'Keenly analytical and critically astute, Ethics and Children’s Literature is a compelling exploration of the ethical at work in literature for the young. Each of the essays contributes a unique voice to the volume; the sensitively edited chapters blend to become a chorus resonant with the ways that ethics and children’s literature inflect one another.' Roberta Seelinger Trites, Illinois State University, USA, author of Disturbing the Universe: Power and Repression in Adolescent Literature and Literary Conceptualizations of Growth 'The volume successfully brings together a variety of approaches to studying ethics in children's literature. It conveys an important message that the quite overt manipulation to which children were subject in the past, e.g. in the segregation era, has been replaced by more subtle snares to be disentangled by critical reading.' International Research in Children's Literature '... a collection that is full of interesting perspectives ... [I] recommend this volume for the freshness of its approach to a subject that has received rather less attention than it deserves in the field of children's literature criticism.' Network
Introduction
Part I The Dilemma of Didacticism: Attempts to Shape Children as Moral Beings
1 Transmitting Ethics through Books of Golden Deeds for Children Claudia Nelson
2 Sermonizing in New York: The Children's Magazines of Mary Mapes Dodge and Jose Marti Emma Adelaida Otheguy
3 Talking to Children about Race: Children's Literature in a Segregated Era, 1930-1945 Moira Hinderer
Part II Ethical Themes in Classic and Contemporary Texts
4 Discernment and the Moral Life in Prince Caspian and the Later Narnia Chronicles Emanuelle Burton
5 Making a Difference: Ethical Recognition through Otherness in Madelein L'Engle's Fiction Mary Jeanette Moran
6 A Prosaics of the Hundred Acre Wood: Ethics in A. A. Milne's Winnie the Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner Niall Nance-Carroll
7 Virtuous Transgressors, Not Moral Saints: Protagonists in Contemporary Children's Literature Jani L. Barker
8 Model Children, Little Rebels, and Moral Transgressors: Virtuous Childhood Images in Taiwanese Juvenile Fiction in the 1960s Andrea Mei-Ying Wu
Part III Ethical Criticism of Children's Literature
9 The Rights and Wrongs of Anthropomorphism in Picture Books Lisa Rowe Fraustino
10 Lewis, Tolkien, and the Ethics of Imaginary Wars Suzanne Rahn
11 Heeding Rousseau's Advice: Some Ethical Reservations about Addressing Prejudice through Children's Literature Claudia Mills
Part IV Ethical Responses to Children's Literature: Identification, Recognition, Adaptation, Conversation
12 The Ethics of Reading Narrative Voice: An Anti-Bakhtinian View Leona W. Fisher
13 Prizing Social Justice: The Jane Addams Children's Book Award Ramona Caponegro
14 Katniss Everdeen's Emerging Moral Consciousness in The Hunger Games Martha Rainbolt
15 Using Children's Literature as a Spark for Ethical Discussion: Stories that Deal with Death Sara Goering