Children’s Literature

Abstract

[A]nalytical and thinking reading is likely to be close to literary criticism or interpretation (the institutional prerogatives are designed to encourage analysis and thought); but is not necessarily so. Literary criticism or interpretation may also be weak in analysis and thinkingness, may be constructed on questionable premises, may have contradictory or limited methodologies that dilute its analytical qualities. Such interpretation or criticism may be unthinking too, and become unthinkingly participant in the social and political effect in question (thus transferring the institutional credentials to that effect, making it that much stronger). This ...has actually been the case with regard to the Harry Potter books.