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Children of the Apocalypse single work   criticism  
Issue Details: First known date: 2011... 2011 Children of the Apocalypse
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This chapter explores apocalypse in children's literature with reference to literary attitudes to children, nature and dystopia. Examinations of works by Lee Harding, Victor Kelleher, and John Marsden then focus on how these writers adapt apocalyptic themes for a juvenile audience. Their novels display tyranny, large-scale catastrophe, invasion, and children in danger, and their apocalyptic settings reveal anxieties about isolation, invasion, Indigenous land rights and colonization. (108)

Notes

  • Epigraph: For some years now the city had been tossing up this small tide of human flotsam, wide-eyed youngsters who roamed the hills for a while, sick with fever, some doomed to die...their numbers were perilously small.
    -Lee Harding, Waiting for the End of the World 31-32

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Apocalypse in Australian Fiction and Film : A Critical Study Roslyn Weaver , Jefferson : McFarland and Company , 2011 Z1820733 2011 single work criticism 'Australia has been a frequent choice of location for narratives about the end of the world in science fiction and speculative works, ranging from pre-colonial apocalyptic maps to key literary works from the last fifty years. This critical work explores the role of Australia in both apocalyptic literature and film. Works and genres covered include Nevil Shute's popular novel On the Beach, Mad Max, children's literature, Indigenous writing, and cyberpunk. The text examines ways in which apocalypse is used to undermine complacency, foretell environmental disasters, critique colonization, and to serve as a means of protest for minority groups. Australian apocalypse imagines Australia at the ends of the world, geographically and psychologically, but also proposes spaces of hope for the future.' (From the publisher's website.) Jefferson : McFarland and Company , 2011 pg. 108-134
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Last amended 30 Jul 2014 12:28:17
108-134 Children of the Apocalypsesmall AustLit logo
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