uses of the past in Jewish and African American children's literature /
First Statement of Responsibility
Jodi Eichler-Levine.
.PUBLICATION, DISTRIBUTION, ETC
Place of Publication, Distribution, etc.
New York :
Name of Publisher, Distributor, etc.
New York University Press,
Date of Publication, Distribution, etc.
2015.
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION
Specific Material Designation and Extent of Item
xxviii, 227 pages :
Other Physical Details
illustrations ;
Dimensions
23 cm.
SERIES
Series Title
North American religions series
INTERNAL BIBLIOGRAPHIES/INDEXES NOTE
Text of Note
Includes bibliographical references (pages 205-219) and index.
SUMMARY OR ABSTRACT
Text of Note
"This compelling work examines classic and contemporary Jewish and African American children's literature. Through close readings of selected titles published since 1945, Jodi Eichler-Levine analyzes what is at stake in portraying religious history for young people, particularly when the histories in question are traumatic ones. In the wake of the Holocaust and lynchings, of the Middle Passage and flight from Eastern Europe's pogroms, children's literature provides diverse and complicated responses to the challenge of representing difficult collective pasts. In reading the work of various prominent authors, including Maurice Sendak, Julius Lester, Jane Yolen, Sydney Taylor, and Virginia Hamilton, Eichler-Levine changes our understanding of North American religions. She illuminates how narratives of both suffering and nostalgia graft future citizens into ideals of American liberal democracy, and into religious communities that can be understood according to recognizable notions of reading, domestic respectability, and national sacrifice. If children are the idealized recipients of the past, what does it mean to tell tales of suffering to children, and can we imagine modes of memory that move past utopian notions of children as our future? Suffer the Little Children asks readers to alter their worldviews about children's literature as an "innocent" enterprise, revisiting the genre in a darker and more unsettled light."--Publisher's website.
TOPICAL NAME USED AS SUBJECT
African Americans in literature.
American literature-- African American authors-- History and criticism.
Children's literature, American-- History and criticism.