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'This study is concerned with how readers are positioned to interpret the past in historical fiction for children and young adults. Looking at literature published within the last thirty to forty years, Wilson identifies and explores a prevalent trend for re-visioning and rewriting the past according to modern social and political ideological assumptions. Fiction within this genre, while concerned with the past at the level of content, is additionally concerned with present views of that historical past because of the future to which it is moving. Specific areas of discussion include the identification of a new sub-genre: Living history fiction, stories of Joan of Arc, historical fiction featuring agentic females, the very popular Scholastic Press historical journal series, fictions of war, and historical fiction featuring multicultural discourses.
Wilson observes specific traits in historical fiction written for children — most notably how the notion of positive progress into the future is nuanced differently in this literature in which the concept of progress from the past is inextricably linked to the protagonist's potential for agency and the realization of subjectivity. The genre consistently manifests a concern with identity construction that in turn informs and influences how a metanarrative of positive progress is played out. This book engages in a discussion of the functionality of the past within the genre and offers an interpretative frame for the sifting out of the present from the past in historical fiction for young readers.' (Publisher's blurb)
Wilson observes specific traits in historical fiction written for children — most notably how the notion of positive progress into the future is nuanced differently in this literature in which the concept of progress from the past is inextricably linked to the protagonist's potential for agency and the realization of subjectivity. The genre consistently manifests a concern with identity construction that in turn informs and influences how a metanarrative of positive progress is played out. This book engages in a discussion of the functionality of the past within the genre and offers an interpretative frame for the sifting out of the present from the past in historical fiction for young readers.' (Publisher's blurb)
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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[Review] Re-Visiting Historical Fiction for Young Readers : The Past through Modern Eyes
2012
single work
review
— Appears in: Bookbird , July vol. 50 no. 3 2012; (p. 82-83)
— Review of Re-Visiting Historical Fiction for Young Readers : The Past through Modern Eyes 2011 single work criticism
-
[Review] Re-Visiting Historical Fiction for Young Readers : The Past through Modern Eyes
2012
single work
review
— Appears in: Bookbird , July vol. 50 no. 3 2012; (p. 82-83)
— Review of Re-Visiting Historical Fiction for Young Readers : The Past through Modern Eyes 2011 single work criticism
Last amended 20 Dec 2018 11:43:28
Subjects:
- Mavis Road Medley 1991 single work novel
- Surviving Sydney Cove : The Diary of Elizabeth Harvey, Sydney, 1790 2000 single work children's fiction
- Mirror, Mirror : An Adventure Through Time 1996 single work novel
- Our Enemy, My Friend : The Diary of Emma Shelldrake, the Adelaide Hills, 1915 2005 single work children's fiction
- Only the Heart 1997 single work novel
- Dangerous Places 2004 single work novel
- Memorial 1999 single work picture book
- Edward Britton 2000 single work novel
- The Divine Wind 1998 single work novel
- Daughter of the Regiment 1998 single work children's fiction
- Macbeth and Son 2006 single work children's fiction
- Somewhere Around the Corner 1994 single work children's fiction
- They Came on Viking Ships 2005 single work children's fiction
- Baily's Bones 1988 single work novel
- The Chinese Boy 1973 single work novel
- The Man in the Red Turban 1978 single work children's fiction
- Boys of Blood and Bone 2003 single work novel
- Snowy : The Diary of Eva Fischer, Cabramurra, 1958-1959 2003 single work children's fiction
- My Hiroshima Anne Bower Ingram (translator), Isao Morimoto (translator), 1987 single work picture book
- Playing Beatie Bow 1980 single work novel
- The House That Was Eureka 1984 single work novel
- A Banner Bold : The Diary of Rosa Aarons, Ballarat Goldfields, 1854 2000 single work children's fiction
- Scatterheart 2007 single work novel
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