A Choice Outstanding Academic Title
Children's Literature Association Book Award winner
This groundbreaking study introduces and explores Lacan鈥檚 complex theories of subjectivity and desire through close readings of canonical children鈥檚 books such as Charlotte鈥檚 Web, Stellaluna, Holes, Tangerine, and The Chocolate War, providing an introduction to an increasingly influential body of difficult work while making the claim that children鈥檚 textual encounters are as significant as their existential ones in constituting their subjectivities and giving shape to their desires.
鈥淪mart and engaging, Looking Glasses and Neverlands is the best extended psychoanalytic study of children鈥檚 literature yet available鈥. The beauty of Coats鈥 book is that it shows that Lacan鈥檚 work is especially suited for the study of children鈥檚 literature. Who knew?鈥濃擪enneth Kidd, Children鈥檚 Literature Association Quarterly
鈥淓ngaging, clear, and authoritative鈥Looking Glasses and Neverlands offers an important contribution to our understanding of children鈥檚 literature and reading.鈥濃擬arshall Alcorn, author of Changing the Subject in English Class
Acknowledgments
Introduction: The Subject of Children's Literature
1. How to Save Your Life: Lessons from a Runt Pig
2. A Time to Mourn: The Loss of the Mother
3. Mourning into Dancing: Recuperating the Loss of the Mother
4. Looking Glasses and Neverlands: Beyond the Symbolic
5. "I Never Explain Anything": Children's Literature and Sexuation
6. Blinded by the White: The Repsonsibilities of Race
7. Abjection and Adolescent Fiction: Ways Out
Conclusion: Postmoderns at the Gates of Dawn
Notes
Bibliography
Index
