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Goodbye Yellow Brick Road: Challenging the Mythology of Home in Children’s Literature

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Abstract

The myth of home is what distinguishes children’s literature from adult novels (Wolf 1990). Nodelman and Reimer (The Pleasures of Children’s Literature, 2003) write that while “the home/away/home pattern is the most common story line in children’s literature, adult fiction that deals with young people who leave home usually ends with the child choosing to stay away” (pp. 197–198). In a critical content analysis of recent award-winning middle reader novels from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia, a new pattern was observed. This pattern, called a postmodern metaplot, begins with the child being abandoned, rather than the child leaving the home. The child’s journey is to construct a home within a postmodern milieu complete with competing truths and failed adults. Ultimately, the child’s postmodern journey ends with very modern ideal of the child leading the adults to a hopeful ending, a home. The article explores the changing roles of childhood and adulthood in children’s literature and questions if the mythology of home can be undone.

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Correspondence to Melissa B. Wilson.

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Melissa B. Wilson is a lecturer at the University of the West Indies in Barbados. Her research areas include investigating the constructions of childhood found in children’s literature, evaluating international Holocaust literature for children, and developing the emerging methodology called critical content analysis. She has presented at many international conferences and has published in Voices from the Middle, WOW Review, and the National Reading Conference Handbook.

Kathy G. Short is a professor at the University of Arizona. Her work has focused on global literature, literature circles, curriculum as inquiry, and collaborative learning environments for teachers and children. She is a professor in the program of Language, Reading and Culture at the University of Arizona and has worked extensively with teachers to develop curriculum that actively involves students as readers and inquirers. She has co-authored many books, including Creating Classrooms for Authors and Inquirers, Learning Together through Inquiry, Literature as a Way of Knowing, Talking about Books, Stories Matter: The Complexity of Cultural Authenticity in Children’s Literature, and Essentials of Children’s Literature. She is director of Worlds of Words (wowlit.org), an initiative to build bridges across global cultures through children’s literature and is President of the U.S. national section of IBBY, the International Board of Books for Young People (www.ussby.org).

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Wilson, M.B., Short, K.G. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road: Challenging the Mythology of Home in Children’s Literature. Child Lit Educ 43, 129–144 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10583-011-9138-z

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