Mystery in Children's Literature: From the Rational to the Supernatural

by Adrienne E. Gavin, Christopher Routledge

Overview

The first book to assess critically mystery in children's literature, this collection charts a development from religious mystery through rationally solved detective fictions to insoluble supernatural and horror mysteries. Written by internationally recognised scholars in the field, these thirteen original essays offer challenging and innovative readings of both classic and popular mysteries for children. This volume will be essential and stimulating reading for anyone with an interest in children's literature or in mystery fiction.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781349423743
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan UK
Publication date:	01/01/2001
Edition description:	1st ed. 2001
Pages:	228
Product dimensions:	5.51(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

TROY BOONE Assistant Professor of English, University of Pittsburgh CLARE BRADFORD Associate Professor, School of Literary and Communication Studies, Deaking University, Melbourne KAREN COATS Assistant Professor of English, Illinois State University VALERIE KRIPS Lecturer in English, University of Pittsburgh ROBYN MCCALLUM Lecturer in English, Macquarie University, Sydney MARY JEANETTE MORAN Doctoral Studies, University of Iowa, USA ROBIN AMELIA MORRIS Poet and Scholar PAT PINSENT Senior Research Fellow, English Department, Roehampton Institute, London DAVID RUDD Senior Lecturer, Bolton Institute, UK JOHN STEPHENS Associate Professor of English, Macquarie University, Sydney

Table of Contents

Notes on the Contributors Mystery in Children's Literature from the Rational to the Supernatural: An Introduction; A.E.Gavin & C.Routledge 'so great and beautiful that I cannot write them': Religious Mystery and Children's Literature; P.Pinsent Nancy's Ancestors: The Mystery of Imaginative Female Power in The Secret Garden and A Little Princess; M.J.Moran The Juvenile Detective and Social Class: Mark Twain, Scouting for Girls , and the Nancy Drew Mysteries; T.Boone Children's Detective Fiction and the 'Perfect Crime' of Adulthood; C.Routledge Digging up the Family Plot: Secrets, Mystery, and the Blytonesque; D.Rudd Plotting the Past: The Detective as Historian in the Novels of Philippa Pearce; V.Krips The Secret Development of a Girl Writer: Louise Fitzhugh's Harriet the Spy; R.A.Morris Apparition and Apprehension: Emergent Womanhood and Supernatural Mystery in Novels for Children by Women Writers; A.E.Gavin Possessed by the Beast: Subjectivity and Agency in Pictures in the Dark and Foxspell; C.Bradford 'There are Worse Things than Ghosts': Reworking Horror Chronotopes in Australian Children's Fiction; J.Stephens & R.McCallum The Mysteries of Postmodern Epistemology: Stratemeyer, Stine, and Contemporary Mystery for Children; K.Coats Harry Potter and the Mystery of Ordinary Life; C.Routledge Enigma's Variation: The Puzzling Mysteries of Avi, Ellen Raskin, Diana Wynne Jones, and Chris Van Allsburg; A.E.Gavin Index

Editorial Reviews

Contributors from the US, Australian, and Britain roam over the variety of mystery in children's literature and demonstrate the range of critical and theoretical responses it can provoke. They use their own definitions of mystery, but the volume's overall notion includes all secret or unexplained experiences, things, or occurrences. The 14 essays are arranged to suggest a roughly chronological shift from certainty to hesitation beginning in the 1950s. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

'I enjoyed reading these essays...a worthwhile book to add to any well-rounded university library...' - Jill P. May, Children's Literature Association Quarterly

From the Publisher