Children's Literature

Catalog description

This class gives students an understanding of the history of children's literature and of some of its major genres, including picture books, fairy tales, fantasies, realistic fiction, and verse. Students will closely read a variety of key texts and will articulate their understanding of what they read in essays supported by carefully analyzed evidence from the primary sources. Throughout the term we will consider what texts from different periods say about the particular era's views of children. Among the classic texts to be studied are Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, and The Wind in the Willows, The Velveteen Rabbit, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and Anne of Green Gables.