No Kids Allowed: Children's Literature for Adults

by Michelle Ann Abate

Overview

Children's literature isn't just for children anymore. This original study explores the varied forms and roles of children's literature—when it's written for adults.

What do Adam Mansbach's Go the F**k to Sleep and Barbara Park's MA! There's Nothing to Do Here! have in common? These large-format picture books are decidedly intended for parents rather than children. In No Kids Allowed, Michelle Ann Abate examines a constellation of books that form a paradoxical new genre: children's literature for adults. Distinguishing these books from YA and middle-grade fiction that appeals to adult readers, Abate argues that there is something unique about this phenomenon. Principally defined by its form and audience, children's literature, Abate demonstrates, engages with more than mere nostalgia when recast for grown-up readers. Abate examines how board books, coloring books, bedtime stories, and series detective fiction written and published specifically for adults question the boundaries of genre and challenge the assumption that adulthood and childhood are mutually exclusive.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781421438863
Publisher:	Johns Hopkins University Press
Publication date:	10/13/2020
Pages:	248
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.65(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Michelle Ann Abate is a professor of literature for children and young adults at The Ohio State University. She is the author of five books, including Tomboys: A Literary and Cultural History, Bloody Murder: The Homicide Tradition in Children's Literature, and Funny Girls: Guffaws, Guts, and Gender in Classic American Comics.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction. A Is for Adult: Coloring Books, Bedtime Stories, and Picture Books for Grown-Ups
1. "A Book for Obsolete Children": Dr. Seuss' You're Only Old Once! and the Rise of Children's Literature for Adults
2. Off to Camp: Mabel Maney's The Case of the Not-So-Nice Nurse, the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories, and Fanfiction
3. Material Matters: Art Spiegelman's In the Shadow of No Towers as a Board Book
4. Baby Talk: Barbara Park's MA! There's Nothing to Do Here!, Fetal Personhood, and Child Authorship
5. Learning Left from Right: Goodnight Bush, Don't Let the Republican Drive the Bus!, and the Broadside Tradition
6. Not Kidding Around: Go the F**k to Sleep and the New Adult Honesty about Parenthood
Conclusion. Both Radical and Reinforcing: The Complicated Cultural Significance of Children's Literature for Adults
Notes
Works Cited
Index

What People are Saying About This

Annette Wannamaker

In lucid prose punctuated with wit, Abate explores how these books reflect significant changes in our cultural conceptions of childhood and adulthood.

Sandra Beckett

Insightful and well-written, No Kids Allowed is a highly enjoyable read. Abate rightly differentiates 'children's literature for adults' from texts for young readers that, like the Harry Potter books, also appeal to adults.

From the Publisher

In lucid prose punctuated with wit, Abate explores how these books reflect significant changes in our cultural conceptions of childhood and adulthood.
—Annette Wannamaker, editor of Mediated Boyhoods: Boys, Teens, and Young Men in Popular Media and Culture

Insightful and well-written, No Kids Allowed is a highly enjoyable read. Abate rightly differentiates 'children's literature for adults' from texts for young readers that, like the Harry Potter books, also appeal to adults.
—Sandra Beckett, author of Revisioning Red Riding Hood around the World: An Anthology of International Retellings

No Kids Allowed is a provocative opening move in an academic discussion that is surprisingly unexplored.
—Deborah Stevenson, editor of The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

No Kids Allowed will make a substantive contribution to the field of children's literature. It promises to be of interest to a broader audience of people invested in and curious about children's books or, specifically, children's books that are created for adult audiences.
—Thomas Crisp, Georgia State University

Deborah Stevenson

No Kids Allowed is a provocative opening move in an academic discussion that is surprisingly unexplored.

Thomas Crisp

No Kids Allowed will make a substantive contribution to the field of children's literature. It promises to be of interest to a broader audience of people invested in and curious about children's books or, specifically, children's books that are created for adult audiences.

Editorial Reviews

[Abate's] most foundational argument is that the genre of children's literature for adults exists at all. Abate's study moves well beyond the genre itself to include cultural analysis of the shifting, often contradictory boundaries of childhood and adulthood."
—American Literary History

From the Publisher

[Abate's] most foundational argument is that the genre of children's literature for adults exists at all. Abate's study moves well beyond the genre itself to include cultural analysis of the shifting, often contradictory boundaries of childhood and adulthood."

American Literary History