ABSTRACT
Gender considerations as regards the humor in junior children’s literature, and not genre in particular, were to be the original focus in this chapter, as I examine the implications for the emergent paradigm of children’s rights and abilities primarily through the lens of the unequal power relations between males and females1. However, it soon became apparent that, from the profusion of texts I initially analyzed as regards gendered humor, certain genres, or at least sub-genres, were emerging that repeatedly showed evidence of gendered humor-‘tween chick lit’2 for girls, such as Child’s Clarice Bean texts (2002 onwards), and humorous adventure/quest texts featuring ‘witty’ boy characters, such as Scieszka’s Time Warp Trio series (1991 onwards). Texts belonging to these two genres constitute the majority of ‘gendered’ works considered in this chapter, although I also suggest some humorous texts that may be more benefi cial as regards the creation of alternative models of gender. I also, by necessity, include texts for implied girl readers that pre-date the mid-1990s’ emergence of ‘chick lit’ as the sub-genre of ‘tween chick lit’ did not emerge from a vacuum and is built upon limiting models of femininity evident in earlier texts.
