Outstanding Book of the Year Award, Childrens Literature AssociationOften called the Golden Age of Childrens Books, the years stretching from the Civil War to World War I were a remarkable epoch in juvenile literature, an era when the best authors on both sides of the Atlantic wrote some of their finest work primarily for children. In Audacious Kids, Jerry Griswold provides a groundbreaking and lucid study of twelve of these classic American childrens tales, including such time-honored stories as Little Women, Tom Sawyer, The Secret Garden, and The Wizard of Oz. Griswolds most remarkable insight is that, fundamentally, these twelve books all tell essentially the same story: a child is orphaned, makes a journey, is adopted and harassed by adults, and eventually triumphs over them and comes into his or her own. Griswold, a leading figure in the study of childrens literature, also reveals that these tales emphasize motifs that are distinctly American, such as positive thinking, concern with health, and the concealment of sex and violence, and he shows how these secular parables replaced religion with psychology and preached gospels of emotional self-control and optimism. In this revised edition, which is aimed at students, scholars, and general readers, Griswold has updated the text throughout and added a new preface, introduction, and select bibliography.
Preface 2014 Preface to the First Edition Introduction 2014: A History of American Children's Literature Introduction to the First Edition: Fundamental Similarities among Twelve American Children's Books Part One: Oedipal Patterns 1. There's No Place but Home The Wizard of Oz 2. The Long Parricidal Dream Adventures of Huckleberry Finn 3. Spinster Aunt, Sugar Daddy, and Child- Woman Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm Part Two: Manuals of Republicanism 4. Motherland, Fatherland, or Oedipal Politics Little Lord Fauntleroy 5. Ur of the Ur- Stories Tarzan of the Apes 6. Impostors, Succession, and Faux Histories The Prince andthe Pauper 7. Remorse and Regrets The Adventures of Tom Sawyer 8. Bosom Enemies Little Women 9. Bread and Circuses Toby Tyler Part Four: The Gospel of Optimism 10. Sunny Land, Angry Waters Hans Brinker 11. Positive Thinking The Secret Garden 12. Radical Innocence Pollyanna Afterword to the First Edition Notes Selected Bibliography Index
""Audacious Kids places children's literature in conversation with the critical treatises about the constitution of the American mind, and, by extension, the American story.""
