Literary Cultures and Twenty-First-Century Childhoods

In the early decades of the twenty-first century, we are grappling with the legacies

of past centuries and their cascading effects upon children and all people. We

realize anew how imperialism, globalization, industrialization, and revolution

continue to reshape our world and that of new generations. At a volatile moment,

this collection asks how twenty-first century literature and related media

represent and shape the contemporary child, childhood, and youth.

Because literary representations construct ideal childhoods as well as model the

rights, privileges, and respect afforded to actual young people, this collection

surveys examples from popular culture and from scholarly practice. Chapters

investigate the human rights of children in literature and international policy; the

potential subjective agency and power of the child; the role models proposed for

young people; the diverse identities children embody and encounter; and the

environmental well-being of future human and nonhuman generations.

As a snapshot of our developing historical moment, this collection identifies

emergent trends, considers theories and critiques of childhood and literature,

and observes how new technologies and paradigms are destabilizing past

conventions of storytelling and lived experience.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Twenty-First Century Literary Cultures and Childhoods

Nathalie op de Beeck

I. Children’s Rights and Role Models

Children’s Right to Participate: Insights from the Story of Malala

Jonathan Todres

The Wisdom of Getting Involved: Civic Engagement in Contemporary Egyptian Children’s Literature

Yasmine Motawy

Bright Pasts, Brighter Futures: Biographies for Children in the Early Twenty-First Century

Clémentine Beauvais

II. Social Justice and Diversity in Literature for Young Readers

“We Need Diverse Books”: Diversity, Activism, and Children’s Literature

Sarah Park Dahlen 

What Having Two Mommies Looks Like Now: Queer Picture Books in the Twenty-First Century

Derritt Mason

III. Representing Youth, Claiming Identity, and Exercising Agency

Nina Christensen

“Ganesha Is My Best Friend”: Homological Boyhood in Hindi Mythological Animated Films

Anuja Madan

Brazilian Childhood and Literature in the Age of Digital Technologies

Edgar Roberto Kirchof 

IV. Coming of Age in the Anthropocene

Animals in Children’s Development: A Roadmap for the Twenty-First Century

Gail F. Melson 

Examining Animal Bodies in War-Related Media for Children

Amy Ratelle 

The Power and Potential: An Ecocritical Reading of Twenty-First Century Childhood

Alice Curry 

V. Contributors

Part of a Palgrave Book Series

Nathalie op de Beeck is the author of Suspended Animation: Children’s Picture

Books and the Fairy Tale of Modernity (2010) and co-creator of Little Machinery:

A Critical Facsimile Edition (2009). Her work appears in The Oxford Handbook of

Children’s Literature (2011), The Routledge Companion to Picturebooks (2017),

and journals including CLAQ and CLE. She is Associate Professor of English at

Pacific Lutheran University, USA.