ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. This book inspires us to reflect on linkages between children’s literature and play, and in particular on their significance for fictional and real child—adult relations. It explores children’s literature as a playground subject to the intergenerational dynamics of playful spaces. The book argues that children’s books concerned with play as a theme or as an extratextual function afforded by the text are sources of cultural meanings regulating play and, more broadly, childhood and adulthood, in similar ways as it happens with the space of the playground. Just as Blackford’s analysis of the playground panopticism and the mutual surveillance and control among children and adults extends a hierarchical model of child—adult relations by pointing to the combination of dependence and autonomy regardless of age, the book provides insights into the potential of children’s literature to inspire and turn into intergenerational play.
