'She makes them tingle all over' : eroticising the child in twentieth-century Australian picture books

Children’s books provide a great deal of insight into adult views of childhood and give us another views of social attitudes to children. In this article the A., by examining some selected picture books of literature for children which were published in Australia between the two world wars, underlines the complexity of the message conveyed by texts as well as, in particular, by illustrations, in this way shedding light on the emergence of a contradictory and “sexualized” construction of childhood – which, at a closer reading, appears to be the manifestation of a mechanism, only apparently contradictory but actually very sophisticated, for valorising a view of childhood as entirely innocent with illustrations which, supporting the pretty and appealing, promote an eroticized image of it

(Ponowne) badanie nastolatków w nagradzanych australijskich książkach dla młodych czytelników

The Children’s Book Council of Australia has been providing awards for young readers since 1946. Over the intervening years categories have been enlarged, acknowledging in part changes in readership and changes in conceptions of childhood and recognising a newer, defined category of ‘teenage’. However, prior to the introduction of the Older Readers category in 1982, there were a number of award-winning books which might well have fitted into that category. This paper will examine books for Older Readers 1972–2022 as a way of comparing Australian attitudes to ‘childhood’ across those decades, recognising that the material young people read often both reflects societal attitudes and reinforces them. What sort of childhood/teenagehood is portrayed, valorised or criticised in these books and have these aspects changed?Australijska Rada Dziecięcej Książki przyznaje wyróżnienia młodym czytelnikom od 1946 roku. W kolejnych latach, respektując częściowo zmiany w czytelnictwie i koncepcjach dzieciństwa oraz uznając nowszą, zdefiniowaną kategorię „nastoletnich”, zasady nagradzania uległy poszerzeniu. Jednak przed wprowadzeniem kategorii starszych czytelników w 1982 roku istniało wiele uhonorowanych książek, które równie dobrze mogły pasować do tej kategorii. Niniejszy artykuł, analizując książki dla starszych czytelników opublikowane w latach 1972–2022, porównuje postawy Australijczyków wobec „dzieciństwa”. Akcentuje, że często czytane przez młodych ludzi materiały odzwierciedlają postawy społeczne, jak i je wzmacniają. Jakie dzieciństwo/młodzież jest przedstawiane, waloryzowane lub krytykowane w tych książkach i czy te aspekty uległy zmianie

He was ready to prove himself a man: The heroic in Australian children's literature

Part of a special issue on childhood and cultural studies. The writer examines the trope of the heroic child in Australian children's literature and discusses how books written for young people can manipulate ideological viewpoints in readers. She concludes that in Australian children's literature, the notion of heroism is closely connected to the construct of Australia as a rural landscape and the notion of hero can be seen as part of the construct of the noble Australian bushman, a construct that does not allow for heroism in female characters and that, in children's literature, usually precludes adults

«Help make the world a better place to live in». Young people as redemptive conscience in Australian books for young adults

The redemptive child has long been a character in literature – both adult’s and children’s – and is widely used, for example, by the Evangelical movement of the nineteenth century. The representation of the redemptive child is an adult construct and books which used such a representation were very much designed to urge the young reader to emulate that construct. In order to discuss the different ways in which the trope has been depicted (e.g. children as the redemptive force of the world and of the corrupted ideology of adults, as the inheritors of the earth, the guardians of the environment, the keepers of ‘true’ values etc.), the Author analyses a range of selected Australian novels for young readers, particularly in the last half of the twentieth century

'Nearly all are supported by children': Charitable childhoods in late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century literature for children in the British world

This chapter explores how cultivating the heart and encouraging charity was reflected by many nineteenth-century British-world writers for children. It examines the idea that these writers saw encouragement as part of the purpose behind their writings

Reading and writing ethically for young Australians

Mitzi Myers, commenting on the pedagogical philosophy of Maria Edgeworth, writes that Edgeworth wanted to empower the child, using adult authority to teach children to think for themselves and to reflect on issues. (Myers 133). This philosophy is implied in many of the books discussed in this chapter, where the “adult authority” is the author (as well as, on some occasions, adult authority figures within the book), whose story, with the ideology contained therein, is designed to enable and encourage the readers to think for themselves. Perhaps paradoxically, however, the role of the child is also, as Robert Pattison points out, constructed in such a way as to reveal faults in the surrounding world. (Pattison 110), a construction of the child which is not new, echoing as it does Dicken’s use of the child as a moral and social way of judging adult actions (Hollindale 100). This article will discuss a range of writing for young Australians which deals with ethical and moral issues as well as consider how we can bring an ethical perspective in our examination of such books

“Helpless and a cripple”: the disabled child in children’s literature and child rescue discourses

“Helpless and a cripple”: the disabled child in children’s literature and child rescue discourses.This article will explore some of the ways disabled children were represented in children’s literature and child rescue literature in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The disabled character was often used quite didactically, teaching lessons about patience and being used to foster compassion and charity. Intersecting with these constructions were views about an ideal childhood, and frequently, strongly Evangelical ideas of children as redeemers