ENG 470 Studies in Children's LiteratureIllustration by Gene Yang

Author & Illustrator as Critic

Fall 2016

Course syllabus (in .pdf format)

The Place of the Author in Children’s Literature & Children’s Literature Criticism

• Zoe Heller & Adam Kirsch’s “Bookends: Should an Author’s Intentions Matter?” New York Times. March 10, 2015 (website link)
• Zadie Smith’s “Rereading Barthes and Nabokov” (handout)
• Roland Barthes “The Death of the Author” (handout)
• W.K. Wimsatt & Monroe Beardsley “The Intentional Fallacy”(website) 

19th & 20th Century Authors on Their BooksBeatrix Potter

• Lewis Carroll’s “`Alice’ on the Stage” (.pdf)
• Robert Louis Stevenson’s “My First Book” 
• L. Frank Baum’s “Modern Fairy Tales” (.pdf)
• Beatrix Potter’s “ 'Roots' of the Peter Rabbit Tales” 
• J.M. Barrie’s “To the Five: A Dedication”

Authors on Fantasy

• George MacDonald’s “Fantastic Imagination” (.pdf)
• C.S. Lewis’s “On Three Ways of Writing for Children” (.pdf)
• J.R. R. Tolkein’s “On Fairy Stories”  (.pdf)
• Edwina Burness & Jerry Griswold ‘s “P.L. Travers: Paris Review Interview” (.pdf)
• P.L. Travers "Only Connect" (.pdf)
• Banned Books Weeks: List of Frequently Challenged Books for 2016. (ALA website)

Contemporary Fantasy 

• Read Leonard Marcus’s The Wand in the Word
• J.K. Rowling’s “By the Book” (.pdf)
• Madeleine L’ Engle “The Expanding Universe: Newbery Award Acceptance” (.pdf) 
• Ursula K. Le Guin accepting National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters at the 65th National Book Awards on November 19, 2014.(youtube)
• Ursula Le Guin has won a rare honor. Just don't call her a Sci-Fi writer.  New York Times. Aug. 28, 2016.

E.B. White E. B. White

• Read E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web
• E.B. White’s “Children’s Books” 
• Questions for E. B. White (.pdf)

Children's Poets and Poetry

• Read JonArno Lawson’s Inside Out: Children’s Poets Discuss Their Work
• X.J. Kennedy’s “Strict and Loose Nonsense: Two Worlds of Children’s Verse” (.pdf)
• Nancy Willard’s  “Newbery Medal Acceptance” (.pdf)
• "Inside Out: Children's Poets Discuss Their Work" (.pdf) added 9/26

Picture Book Illustrators and Authors

• Read Leonard Marcus’s Show Me A Story: Why Picture Books Matter
  
• Read Crockett Johnson’s Harold and the Purple Crayon
• Maurice Sendak’s “Ruth Krauss and Me: A Very Special Partnership” (.pdf)
• Robert McCloskey’s "Caldecott Award Speech”(.pdf)

Maurice SendakMaurice Sendak illustration

• Read: Sendak’s Caldecott & Company
• Read: Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are 

Sutherland Lectures

• Read: Betsy Hearne’s The Sutherland Lectures, 1983-1992
• Arnold Lobel’s “A Good Picture Book Should …” (.pdf)
• Margaret Wise Brown’s “Creative Writing for Very Young Children” (.pdf) 

Katherine Paterson

• Read: Katherine Paterson’s A Sense of Wonder: On Reading and Writing Books for Children

Virginia Hamilton    Virginia Hamilton

• Read: Arnold Adoff’s Virginia Hamilton: Speeches, Essays & Conversations
• Ezra Jack Keats "Caldecott Award Acceptance" (.pdf)
• Selection of Everything I Need to Know essays (.pdf)

Beverly Cleary

• Read: Beverly Cleary’s Dear Mr. Henshaw and On My Own Two Feet PDF document posted Nov. 7
• Beverly Cleary’s “Newberry Medal Acceptance.”  With the Dear Mr. Henshaw pdf above.
• Beverly Cleary’s “The Laughter of Children” (.pdf)
• Jon Scieszka’s “What’s So Funny, Mr. Scieszka?” (.pdf)
• Beverly Cleary at 100, a video by the Oregonian

Louis Fitzhugh’s Harriet the Spy

• Harriet's House for sale   

Rainbow Rowell’s Fangirl: A NovelRainbow Rowell

• Janet Davitt “Fan Fiction, Plagiarism, and Copyright” (.pdf)
• Kirby Ferguson’s “Everything is a Remix” The Song Remains the Same, Remix Inc., Elements of Creativity, System Failure  (website)
• Kevin Nguyen's article "The Rainbow Rowell Theory of Fan Fiction" (.pdf)
• Rainbow Connection .pdf
• Fangirl video by Sophie Dreamcast (youtube)
• Kobo in Conversation with Rainbow Rowell
• Fangirl: A Short Film (focus on chapter 5)
• Q&A with Rainbow Rowell (.pdf)

Author/Illustrator’s Websites/You tube videos/ documentaries

• John Green's website
• Judy Blume's website
• Gene Luen Yang's website
• Jacqueline Woodson website
• Spike Jonz’s “Tell Them Anything You Want: A Portrait of Maurice Sendak”