Children's Literature
- Level 2 or above or 6.0 units of ENGL
Please refer to the to obtain the most up-to-date list of required materials for this course before purchasing them.
- Demers, Patricia, ed. From Instruction to Delight: An Anthology of Children's Literature to 1850. 4th ed. Oxford UP, 2015.
- Burnett, Frances Hodgson. The Secret Garden. Illustrated by Tasha Tudor, HarperCollins Canada, 2010.
- Dahl, Roald. Danny, the Champion of the World. Illustrated by Quentin Blake, Puffin, 2007.
- Grahame, Kenneth. The Wind in the Willows. Illustrated by Ernest Shepard, Aladdin, 1989.
- Kogawa, Joy. Naomi 91制片厂 鈥檚 Road. Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2005.
- Lowry, Lois. Number the Stars. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2001.
- Pearce, Philippa. Tom 91制片厂 鈥檚 Midnight Garden. Oxford UP, 2015.
- Potter, Beatrix. The Tale of Peter Rabbit. Warne, 2012.
Note: The first half of the course focuses on material in this textbook, so it is imperative that students acquire a copy of the anthology by the beginning of the course to avoid falling behind on readings and assignments. Earlier editions of this anthology are not recommended. An e-book version of the anthology is also available for purchase and rent through both (in Canadian dollars) and (in US dollars). Both VitalSource and RedShelf offer 180-day rentals.
This online course takes as its focus the history and critical analysis of children's literature in Britain from the Middle Ages to the twenty-first century, with an emphasis on nineteenth-century works for children.
The first half of the course concentrates on poems, short stories, and excerpts of other prose works included in the anthology From Instruction to Delight and is designed to survey the development of a literature shaped specifically for children from its beginnings to the Golden Age of the nursery at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
The second half of the course will sample various genres in children's literature of the twentieth century, such as animal stories, fantasy, historical fiction, trauma literature, and picture books. Our historical and geographic lens will expand to include works published in the United States and Canada. Central to our study will be an examination of the construction of childhood across the centuries; an extended consideration of the intersections and relationships between literature, politics, philosophy, commerce, religion, economics, and art; and an investigation of the dynamics between literature written for adult audiences and books read by children.
A foundational principle of our course is that children 91制片厂 鈥檚 literature performs important socio-cultural work and that the best examples of works read by young readers invite well informed, thoughtful, sophisticated, and engaged close analysis. As we progress through our course we will interrogate hackneyed clich茅s and popular assumptions such as that the primary function of books read by children (past or present) is to stimulate the imagination of the child; that children's literature is simplistic, conservative, or moral; that children are naturally sweet, innocent little angels; and that childhood is a period of sweetness and light safely removed from adult concerns.
Requirements (Subject to Change): This course does not require synchronous, real-time activities, but students are expected to work through the six modules of the course, devoting two weeks to each module throughout the term.
Assessments
Grading Components
- written online discussions
- two quizzes
- an analytical comparative essay
- proctored two-hour final exam.
**Subject to change**