Introduction

Children’s literature is one of the few types of literature defined by the age group of its presumed audience. Some of the most exciting scholarship in Children’s Literature has focused attention on the roles of race, gender, sexuality, and social class in constructing childhood. Work on race, gender, disability, and social class serves as a means to pierce the idealization of childhood, as scholars reckon with the ways in which childhood is not always a sheltered and cherished space but one where children face similar challenges to their adult counterparts. Children’s Literature can be studied both within a single discipline’s methodologies and parameters, or it can take an interdisciplinary form and draw on several methodologies. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.