ABSTRACT
Children’s literature immerses children in the normative ethos of the dominant culture. It appears to encourage individuals to develop as autonomous subjects in pursuit of their individual interests but explores relational selfhoods and community. Children’s literature has always responded to the perceived cultural and social needs of young people: from the medieval courtesy books that taught the etiquette needed for the social harmony of extended family households to contemporary works that tackle the complex social dynamics of ones’ time. In many ways, children’s literature continues to exist because adults are determined to carve out a distinct literary and cultural space for young people in the face of profound cultural and technological change. The loop between activists, writers and scholars has encouraged diversity and pressed for the inclusion of marginalized voices and this change the sense of a universal childhood and a literature responding to that childhood.
