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  • Handbook of research on children's and young adult literature
  • Donna Adomat
Shelby A. Wolf, Karen Coats, Patricia Enciso, and Christine A. Jenkins (Eds), Handbook of research on children’s and young adult literature. New York [et al]: Routledge 2011 XII pp + 555 pp ISBN 9780415965057 (hbk) ISBN 9780415965064 (pbk) ISBN 978023843543 (ebk) US $ 295.00 (hbk) / US $ 94.00 (pbk) US $ 101.83 (ebk)

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The purpose of this handbook is to describe and analyze “different aspects of literary reading, texts, and contexts” from the scholarship of three disciplines: literacy education, English, and library sciences. Each field has developed its own “tradition for interpretation” for youth literature and these perspectives are woven throughout the three parts of the handbook. Part I, “The Reader,” explores social, political, and historical contexts of readers and reading in home, school, library, and community settings, from literature with LGBT themes to reading literature with children in elementary schools. Part II, “The Book,” provides analytic frames for examining genres in contemporary literature, such as graphic or indigenous novels and textual studies. Particularly thought-provoking are commentaries provided by renowned authors and illustrators including David Wiesner, Lois Lowry, and Philip Pullman. Part III, “The World Around,” looks at the contexts and issues of access that surround books and youth, such as literature around the globe, censorship, publishing policies, and institutions that support and preserve literature.

The multiple authors represented in this volume—nearly 130 academics, authors, and illustrators—come from wide-ranging backgrounds and raise many questions and sometimes contradictory perspectives about contemporary literature; yet these articles serve to open up new conversations among disciplines with often disparate parameters of scholarship. As the authors note, it is perhaps in the books themselves where “people, regardless of academic discipline, theoretical persuasion, or age, can find true common ground.”

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