This course will challenge received notions of child and childhood as well as preconceptions of children’s literature and ideas about what children’s literature should be like. At the same time the course will focus on defining the various ways in which children’s books can be considered alternative, experimental, radical, and subversive. Radical and subversive elements can be seen in the forms and formats as well as in the contents and subject matter of children’s literature. Narratives using new forms and formats such as graphic novels, texts combining visual and verbal narratives, non-linear plot organization, non-sequential composition, multiple layers, and interactive formats will be considered. Texts demonstrating changing perspectives such as the use of multiple perspectives and new unheard voices as well as previously considered taboo subjects, themes, settings, characters, and so forth will be studied in detail. A selection of alternative, experimental, radical, and subversive texts in various formats (picture books, graphic novels, short stories, poetry, children’s and young adult novels, films, TV programs, etc.) will be read and analyzed. These texts will be discussed together with the historical and socio-cultural contexts which produced them.

This course will challenge received notions of child and childhood as well as preconceptions of children’s literature and ideas about what children’s literature should be like. At the same time the course will focus on defining the various ways in which children’s books can be considered alternative, experimental, radical, and subversive. Radical and subversive elements can be seen in the forms and formats as well as in the contents and subject matter of children’s literature. Narratives using new forms and formats such as graphic novels, texts combining visual and verbal narratives, non-linear plot organization, non-sequential composition, multiple layers, and interactive formats will be considered. Texts demonstrating changing perspectives such as the use of multiple perspectives and new unheard voices as well as previously considered taboo subjects, themes, settings, characters, and so forth will be studied in detail. A selection of alternative, experimental, radical, and subversive texts in various formats (picture books, graphic novels, short stories, poetry, children’s and young adult novels, films, TV programs, etc.) will be read and analyzed. These texts will be discussed together with the historical and socio-cultural contexts which produced them.

A selection of primary works will be chosen for study in class. Secondary materials will be collected in a course pack and students will receive the materials through iLearn.

Almond, David. My Name Is Mina. London, Hodder Children’s Books, 2010; 2016.

Anderson, M. T. Feed. Somerville, MA, Candlewick Press, 2002; 2012.

Burgess, Melvin. Junk. London, Andersen Press, 1996; 2021.

Dickinson, Peter. Eva. New York, Laurel Leaf, 1988; 2008.

Fine, Anne. The Tulip Touch. London, Penguin Books, 1996; 2018.

Frost, Helen. Diamond Willow. New York, Square Fish, 2008; 2011.

Garner, Alan. Red Shift. London, Harper Collins Children’s Books, 1973; 2014.

McCaughrean, Geraldine. Where the World Ends. London, Usborne, 2017.

Myers, Walter Dean. Monster. New York, Harper Collins, 1999; 2008.

Rogers, Jane. The Testament of Jessie Lamb. Edinburgh, Canongate Books, 2011.

Yang, Gene Luen. American Born Chinese. New York, Square Fish, 2006.