Containing Childhood: Space and Identity in Children's Literature

This collection is thought-provoking and timely as we have spent the past three years reimagining the shape of our spaces in the pandemic. jen McConnel, School Library Journal

While adults strive to contain children in what they see as "safe" spaces, children push boundaries and claim spaces they can call their own. In this collection of scholarly essays,. the authors analyze middle-grade and young-adult literature to demonstrate how space and identity are inextricably inked, and how children's l1iterature describes and creates various types of spaces for children to claim and explore. Russell (York Univ., Ontario) has assembled a diverse collection of essays that analyze works of classic and contemporary l1irterature from the UK and the US. The essays examine spaces that range from personal and geographic to racial and gendered. and show how chi1ldren shape their identities within these spaces. Simi1lar ideas are explored in Knowing Their Place? Identity and Space in Children's Literature, ed. by Kerri Doughty and Dawn "Thompson (2011), though this earlier collection focuses more on diverse authors (!Indian and Native American in particular). The current collection expands on the earlier text: the essays address different types of space and analyze different works of literature. There is room for both collections, which complement each other well. P. J. Kurtz, CHOICE

This collection, with a diverse range of contributors addressing a broad selection of texts for middle and young adult readers, builds on?rather than replicates?existing work. It provides a useful contribution to the growing field of geographies and mobilities of childhood. Terri Doughty, coeditor of Knowing Their Place? Identity and Space in Children’s Literature

Containing Childhood is erudite, engaging, and original. The new ideas in this collection highlight the intersections between personal and geographic spaces, as well as social, political, economic, racial, gendered, and conceptual spaces, while raising necessary and timely questions about the ways we participate within them. The result is a sophisticated and thoughtful reflection on the ideas of boundaries, liminal spaces, and identity. Jane Suzanne Carroll, author of Landscape in Children’s Literature