New Book: IRISH CHILDREN’S LITERATURE AND CULTURE

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IRISH CHILDREN’S LITERATURE AND CULTURE
NEW PERSPECTIVES ON CONTEMPORARY WRITING
EDITED BY VALERIE COGHLAN AND KEITH O’SULLIVAN
ISBN: 978‐0‐415‐87789‐3
Publication Date: 21 December 2010
Irish Children’s Literature and Culture looks critically at Irish writing for children from the
1980s to the present, examining the work of many writers and illustrators and engaging
with major genres, forms, and issues, including the gothic, the speculative, picturebooks,
ethnicity, and globalization. It contextualizes contemporary Irish children’s literature in
relation to Irish mythology and earlier writings, as well as in relation to Irish writing for
adults, thereby demonstrating the complexity of this fascinating area.
The contributors to the volume examine a range of texts in relation to contemporary
literary and cultural theory, and children’s literature internationally, raising provocative
questions about the future of the topic. Irish Children’s Literature and Culture is essential
reading for those interested in Irish literature, culture, sociology, childhood, and children’s
literature.
VALERIE COGHLAN, Church of Ireland College of Education, Dublin, is a librarian and
lecturer. She is a former co‐editor of Bookbird: An International Journal of Children’s
Literature. She has published widely on Irish children’s literature and co‐edited several
books on the topic. She is a former board member of the IRSCL, and a founder member of
the Irish Society for the Study of Children’s Literature, Children’s Books Ireland, and IBBY
Ireland.
KEITH O’SULLIVAN lectures in English at the Church of Ireland College of Education, Dublin.
He is a founder member of the Irish Society for the Study of Children’s Literature, a former
member of the board of directors of Children’s Books Ireland, and current chair of the
Children’s Books Ireland/Bisto Book of the Year Awards. He has published on the works of
Philip Pullman and Emily Brontë.
CONTENTS
Mythologizing Ireland
CIARA NÍ BHROIN
Borderlands: Dead Bog and Living Landscape
ÉILÍS NÍ DHUIBHNE
Cleaning up the Mess? The Child and Nation in Historical Fiction Set between 1890 and 1922
SUSAN CAHILL
‘What Foot Does He Dig With?’ Inscriptions of Religion and Cultural Identity
VALERIE COGHLAN
Young Adult Fiction and Youth Culture
PÁDRAIC WHYTE
Fictionalizing Families
AMANDA PIESSE
‘Binding with Briars’: Romanticizing the Child
KEITH O’SULLIVAN
Evil Innocence: The Child and Adult in Fiction
JARLATH KILLEEN
‘Walking . . . into the Night’: Growing Up with the Gothic
ANNE MARKEY
Contemplating Otherness: Imagining the Future in Speculative Fiction
PATRICIA KENNON
Meanings and Means: Children’s Poetry Now
MARY SHINE THOMPSON
Picturebooks that Transcend Boundaries
SANDRA L BECKETT
Insularity and Internationalism: Between Local Production and the Global Marketplace
EMER O’SULLIVAN