The Outside Child, In and Out of the Book (Children's Literature and Culture)

ISBN: 0415978009

Author: Wilkie-Stibbs, Christine

Condition: New

The Outside Child, In and Out of the Book is situated at the intersection between childrens literature studies and childhood studies. In this provocative book, Christine Wilkie-Stibbs juxtaposes the narratives of literary and actual children/young adults to explore how Western culture has imagined, defined, and dealt with their outsider status - whether orphaned, homeless, refugee, victims of abuse, or exploited - and how processes of economic, social, or political impoverishment are sustained and naturalized in regimes of power, authority, and domination.In five chapters titled: "Outsider," "Displaced," "Erased," "Abject," "Unattached," and "Colonized," the book situates and repositions a range of pre- and post-millennium childrens/young adult fictions, autobiographies, policy documents, and reports in the current climate of rabid globalization, new "out-group" definitions, and prescribed normativity. Childrens/young adult fictions considered include: Malorie Blackmans Noughts and Crosses trilogy; Mark Haddons The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time; Jacqueline Wilsons The Illustrated Mum; Shyam Selvadurais Funny Boy; Ann Provoosts Falling; Meg Rosoffs, How I Live Now; Elizabeth Lairds A Little Piece of Ground. Autobiographical works include Zlata Filipovics Zlatas Diary; Kevin Lewiss The Kid; Latifas My Forbidden Face; and Valérie Zenattis When I Was a Soldier.