joosen

In recent decades, age studies has started to emerge as a new approach to study children’s literature. This book builds on that scholarship but also significantly extends it by exploring age in various aspects of children’s literature: the age of the author, the characters, the writing style, the intended readership and the real reader. Moreover, the authors explore what different theories and methods can be used to study age in children’s literature, and what their affordances and limits are. The analyses combine age studies with life writing studies, cognitive narratology, digital humanities, comparative literary studies, reader-response research and media studies. To ensure coherence, the book offers an in-depth exploration of the oeuvre of a single author, David Almond. The aesthetic and thematic richness of Almond’s works has been widely recognised. This book adds to the understanding of his oeuvre by offering a multi-faceted analysis of age. In addition to discussing the film adaptation of his best-known novel Skellig, this book also offers analyses of works that have received less attention, such as Counting Stars, Clay and Bone Music. Readers will also get a fuller understanding of Almond as a crosswriter of literature for children, adolescents and adults.

Michelle Anya Anjirbag (University of Antwerp, Belgium) is an affiliated postdoctoral researcher at the University of Antwerp. Her research interests include adaptation, fairy tales and folklore, Disney, magical libraries, the intersection of literature, media, and culture, representations of gender and age, and cross-period approaches to narrative transmission across cultures and societies. Her work has appeared in journals including Adaptation, Children’s Literature Association Quarterly, Humanities, Marvels & Tales, and Social Sciences.

Leander Duthoy (University of Antwerp, Belgium) is a PhD student. He conducts empirical reader-response research to explore how the age of readers affects their understanding of age in fiction for young readers. He has published articles in Children’s Literature in Education and International Research in Children’s Literature.

Lindsey Geybels (University of Antwerp, Belgium) is a PhD student in children’s literature and digital humanities. Her research focuses on the influence that the age of the intended reader has on the construction of age in children’s, young adult and adult fiction. She uses digital tools to examine the work of crosswriters and has published articles in The Journal of Cultural Analytics, Language and Literature and Spiegel Der Letteren.

Vanessa Joosen (University of Antwerp, Belgium) is a full professor of English literature and children’s literature. She is the Principal Investigator of the ERC-funded project ＂Constructing Age for Young Readers＂ and co-organiser of the Children’s Literature Summer School. Joosen has authored, amongst others, Critical and Creative Perspectives on Fairy Tales (2011), Adulthood in Children’s Literature (2018) and articles in Children’s Literature in Education and The Lion and the Unicorn.

Frauke Pauwels (University of Antwerp, Belgium) is a postdoctoral researcher, visiting lecturer and co-organiser of the Children’s Literature Summer School. Her research interests include adaptations of children’s literature, age studies, cognitive narratology, and Dutch children’s literature. She defended her PhD on representations of scientists in children’s literature in 2021. Her work has appeared in, amongst others, Children’s Literature Association Quarterly and International Research in Children’s Literature.

Emma-Louise Silva (University of Antwerp, Belgium) is a postdoctoral researcher and visiting lecturer. Her research focuses on age studies, cognitive narratology, genetic criticism, and philosophy of mind. She defended her PhD on James Joyce and cognition in 2019. Her research for the CAFYR project has been published in Age, Culture, Humanities and in the European Journal of Life Writing.