Reading in the Dark: Horror in Children's Literature and Culture

by Jessica R. McCort (Editor)

Overview

Considerations of horror from Struwwelpeter to Coraline, Shrek, and Monsters, Inc.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781496806444
Publisher:	University Press of Mississippi
Publication date:	04/28/2016
Series:	Children's Literature Association Series
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Jessica R. McCort, Washington, Pennsylvania, is assistant professor and coordinator of the Writing Intensive Program at Point Park University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her work has appeared in a variety of journals and edited volumes.

Editorial Reviews

Reading in the Dark . . . may well refer to the impossible art of attempting to read a scary book in the darkness under the covers, or the act of reading the darkness within stories, as these collected critics attempt to do here, with enlightening and insightful results. As a series of explorations of what McCort calls 'the dark aesthetic, ' the collection not only succeeds but manages to break new critical ground.--Rebecca Long "Irish Journal of Gothic and Horror Studies"

Reading in the Dark is an ambitious reconfiguring of horror and children's literature, reaching back to our earliest texts and pretexts. True to the title, the chapters in this collection are about both the impossible (reading in the dark) and about the giddily terrified welcome we have given to our monsters since our earliest days, as we read the dark into our fairy tales, our picture books, our films, our poetry, and our prose.--Joe Sutliff Sanders, associate professor of children's literature in the English Department at Kansas State University

Horror in children's literature has an interesting past and the potential for a promising future, particularly in promoting literacy and engaging young readers. This book explores a bit of that timeline while evaluating horror's influence on childhood, offering an excellent addition to horror studies.--Tiffany Morin "Children's Literature Association Quarterly"

Though each individual essay presents a depth of knowledge on its chosen subject, the collection suggests that, though horror certainly exists within children's literature and culture, scholars should expand how they think about genre in order to open up potential lines of inquiry--Sara Austin "The Lion and the Unicorn"

From the Publisher