ABSTRACT
Post-devolution Scottish, particularly female-authored, children’s ction increasingly responds to the needs of the nation’s diverse populace, fostering an ethical collective responsibility for its future direction and aspiration (see McCulloch 2007). To my mind, resident Scottish women writers like J. K. Rowling, Julie Bertagna and Theresa Breslin deconstruct traditional national rhetoric and envision new Scotlands. In doing so, such texts are not only shaped by responding to changes in Scotland’s position within global issues, but are themselves helping to shape its outlook and intended citizenship. Crucially, to reiterate the Introduction’s quote from Aileen Christianson and Alison Lumsden, ‘the breadth of work of contemporary Scottish women writers now ensures the redrawing of the literary map of Scotland’, pluralising national identity ‘in a culture previously more accessible to male Scottish writers’ (Christianson and Lumsden 1).
