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Irish Childhoods: Children’s Fiction and Irish History
Author(s): Pádraic Whyte (Author)
- Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
- Publication Date: 23 May 2011
- Edition: 1st
- Language: English
- Print length: 220 pages
- ISBN-10: 1443828610
- ISBN-13: 9781443828611
Book Description
While much has been written about Irish culture’s apparent obsession with the past and with representing childhood, few critics have explored in detail the position of children’s fiction within such discourses. This book serves to redress these imbalances, illuminating both the manner in which children’s texts engage with complex cultural discourses in contemporary Ireland and the significant contribution that children’s novels and films can make to broader debates concerning Irish identity at the end of the twentieth and beginning of the twenty-first centuries. Through close analysis of specific books and films published or produced since 1990, Irish Childhoods offers an insight into contrasting approaches to the representation of Irish history and childhood in recent children’s fiction. Each chapter interrogates the unique manner in which an author or filmmaker engages with twentieth century Irish history from a contemporary perspective, and reveals that constructions of childhood in Irish children’s fiction are often used to explore aspects of Ireland’s past and present.
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Dr Pádraic Whyte is Lecturer in Children’s Literature and co-director of the Masters programme in Children’s Literature at the School of English, Trinity College Dublin. He has published several articles and essays in the areas of children’s literature and film.
