Ethics and Children’s Literature

279 Pages·2014·2.215 MB·English

by  Claudia Mills

Ethics and childrEn’s litEraturE
ashgate studies in childhood,
1700 to the Present

Series Editor: Claudia Nelson, Texas A&M University, USA
this series recognizes and supports innovative work on the child and on literature
for children and adolescents that informs teaching and engages with current
and emerging debates in the field. Proposals are welcome for interdisciplinary
and comparative studies by humanities scholars working in a variety of fields,
including literature; book history, periodicals history, and print culture and the
sociology of texts; theater, film, musicology, and performance studies; history,
including the history of education; gender studies; art history and visual culture;
cultural studies; and religion.
topics might include, among other possibilities, how concepts and
representations of the child have changed in response to adult concerns; postcolonial
and transnational perspectives; “domestic imperialism” and the acculturation
of the young within and across class and ethnic lines; the commercialization of
childhood and children’s bodies; views of young people as consumers and/or
originators of culture; the child and religious discourse; children’s and adolescents’
self-representations; and adults’ recollections of childhood.
also in the series
Female Rebellion in Young Adult Dystopian Fiction
Edited by Sara K. Day, Miranda A. Green-Barteet, and Amy L. Montz
Empire, Education, and Indigenous Childhoods
Nineteenth-Century Missionary Infant Schools in Three British Colonies
Helen May, Baljit Kaur and Larry Prochner
Children’s Games in the New Media Age
Childlore, Media and the Playground
Edited by Andrew Burn and Chris Richards
The Making of Modern Children’s Literature in Britain
Publishing and Criticism in the 1960s and 1970s
Lucy Pearson
Ethics and children’s literature

Edited by
CLAuDiA MiLLS
University of Colorado at Boulder, USA
First published 2014 by Ashgate Publishing
Published 2016 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
Copyright © 2014 Claudia Mills and the contributors.

Claudia Mills has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to
be identified as the editor of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any
form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publishers.
Notice:
Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only
for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:
Ethics and children’s literature / edited by Claudia Mills.
pages cm. — (Ashgate studies in childhood, 1700 to the present)
includes bibliographical references and index.
Summary: “Exploring the ethical questions posed by, in, and about children’s literature,
this collection examines the way texts intended for children raise questions of value, depict
the moral development of their characters, and call into attention shared moral presupposi-
tions. Even as children’s literature has evolved in opposition to its origins in didactic Sun-
day school tracts and moralizing fables, authors, parents, librarians, and scholars remain
sensitive to the values conveyed to children through the texts they choose to share with
them” — Provided by publisher.
iSBN 978-1-4724-4072-3 (hardcover: alk. paper) — iSBN 978-1-4724-4074-7 (ebook)
— iSBN 978-1-4724-4073-0 (epub)
1.Children’s literature—Moral and ethical aspects. 2. Children—Books and reading. 3.
Moral education. 4. Virtues in literature. 5. Social values in literature. 6. Social justice in
literature. 7. Literature and morals. 8. Children’s literature—History and criticism. i. Mills,
Claudia, editor.
PN1009.A1E81 2014
809’.89282—dc23
2014013559
iSBN: 978-1-472-44072-3 (hbk)
To the Prindle Institute for Ethics
This page has been left blank intentionally
Contents
Notes on Contributors ix
Preface xiii
Introduction 1
Part I The Dilemma of Didacticism: Attempts to Shape Children
as Moral Beings
1 Transmitting Ethics through Books of Golden Deeds for Children 15
Claudia Nelson
2 Sermonizing in New York: The Children’s Magazines of Mary Mapes
Dodge and José Martí 29
Emma Adelaida Otheguy
3 Talking to Children about Race: Children’s Literature in a
Segregated Era, 1930–1945 41
Moira Hinderer
Part II Ethical Themes in Classic and Contemporary Texts
4 Discernment and the Moral Life in Prince Caspian and the Later
Narnia Chronicles 57
Emanuelle Burton
5 Making a Difference: Ethical Recognition through Otherness in
Madeleine L’Engle’s Fiction 75
Mary Jeanette Moran
6 A Prosaics of the Hundred Acre Wood: Ethics in A. A. Milne’s
Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner 89
Niall Nance-Carroll
7 Virtuous Transgressors, Not Moral Saints: Protagonists in
Contemporary Children’s Literature 101
Jani L. Barker
8 Model Children, Little Rebels, and Moral Transgressors: Virtuous
Childhood Images in Taiwanese Juvenile Fiction in the 1960s 125
Andrea Mei-Ying Wu
viii Ethics and Children’s Literature
Part III Ethical Criticism of Children’s Literature
9 The Rights and Wrongs of Anthropomorphism in Picture Books 145
Lisa Rowe Fraustino
10 Lewis, Tolkien, and the Ethics of Imaginary Wars 163
Suzanne Rahn

11 Heeding Rousseau’s Advice: Some Ethical Reservations about
Addressing Prejudice through Children’s Literature 181
Claudia Mills
Part IV Ethical Responses to Children’s Literature: Identification,
Recognition, Adaptation, Conversation
12 The Ethics of Reading Narrative Voice: An Anti-Bakhtinian View 197
Leona W. Fisher
13 Prizing Social Justice: The Jane Addams Children’s Book Award 207
Ramona Caponegro
14 Katniss Everdeen’s Emerging Moral Consciousness in
The Hunger Games 223
Martha Rainbolt
15 Using Children’s Literature as a Spark for Ethical Discussion:
Stories that Deal with Death 233
Sara Goering
Index 247
Notes on Contributors
Jani L. Barker is Associate Professor in the English, Humanities, and Languages
Department at Southeastern Oklahoma State University, where she teaches
children’s literature. Her research interests include narrative perspective,
socialization, and ethics in historical and contemporary children’s literature.
Emanuelle Burton is Visiting Instructor of Humanities at Centre College. She
completed her PhD in Religion and Literature at the University of Chicago
Divinity School in 2014. Her research interests center on the relationship between
ethics and metaphysics in fantasy and science fiction.
Ramona Caponegro is Assistant Professor in the Children’s Literature Program
at Eastern Michigan University. She has given numerous presentations on
multicultural children’s literature and the Jane Addams Children’s Book Award,
including workshops at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, the Mazza
Museum of International Art from Picture Books, and the Fay B. Kaigler Children’s
Book Festival. She is also the former Coordinator of the Center of Children’s
Literature and Culture at the University of Florida.
Leona W. Fisher is Professor Emerita in the English Department at Georgetown
University, where she taught Victorian literature, children’s and young adult fiction
and film, and women’s studies. Her publications include work on Victorian topics
and essays on narrative theory and children’s texts. Her current projects include a
book-length study of Nancy Drew and the Girl Scouts.
Lisa Rowe Fraustino is Professor of English at Eastern Connecticut State University
and a Visiting Associate Professor in the Graduate Program in Children’s Literature
at Hollins University. The Hole in the Wall, her most recent novel, won the 2010
Milkweed Prize for Children’s Literature.
Sara Goering is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Washington,
Seattle, and Program Director for the UW Center for Philosophy for Children. With
Thomas Wartenberg and Nicholas Shudak, she co-edited the book Philosophy in
Schools: An Introduction for Philosophers and Teachers (Routledge, 2013).
Moira Hinderer is a Visiting Scholar at Johns Hopkins University and a Non-
Resident Research Fellow at the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute at Harvard University.
She completed her PhD in History at the University of Chicago in 2007. Her work
focuses on the history of African American childhood in the twentieth century.