The Inside, Outside, and Upside Downs of Children's Literature: From Poets and Pop-ups to Princesses and Porridge

by Jenifer Jasinski Schneider

The Inside, Outside, & Upside Downs of Children’s Literature is a groundbreaking text in which Jenifer Jasinski Schneider explores current issues in children’s and young adult literature through extended discourse and integrated digital resources. Although many children’s literature textbooks are organized by genre and written just for teachers, this book targets all audiences who have personal, professional, or peripheral interests in what children and young adults read, why they read, and how books work. Using a straightforward approach to analysis and written with a critical view of a $4-billion-a-year industry, Jenifer Jasinski Schneider examines children’s literature as a collection of texts that socialize youth, politicize identity, represent history, and become art. This book is relevant for anyone who wants to understand the value of children’s literature across political, financial, cultural, educational, and social borders. Table of Contents 1. Why are you reading kids’ books? (An Introduction) 2. What is Children’s Literature? (Definitions & Delimitations) 3. Got books? (Access, Collections, & Digital Resources) 4. Important Books (Problems & Politics of Notable Lists, Awards & Associations) 5. The Right Book for the Right Reader at the Right Time (Analysis & Development) 6. The Reading Wars (The Intervening Effects of School and Politics) 7. American Typo (Ghost, Fan, Serial , and Celebrity Writers and Illustrators) 8. Beyond the Page and Behind the Scenes (Writing, Publishing & Marketing) 9. Gore & Grimm, Princesses & Porridge (The Roots of Story and Narration) 10. Waxing Poetic (Deliberate Description, Reading Aloud, Choral Reading & Performance) 11. Past Presidents and Evading Inventors (Not Your Grandmother’s Information Books) 12. Banned and Burned Why Worry? It’s just Kiddie Lit (Children, Banned Books and The Right to Read)

Genres: Textbooks

480 pages, ebook

Published March 15, 2016

Reviews

[Sarah Van Kuiken · Rating 3 out of 5]

Look, I liked this, but why are you yelling?

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Strengths:
-open access format
-inclusion of multimedia: images of books, videos of experts giving examples and readings of texts
-broad definition of children's literature, taking into account multiple audiences and formats
-explanations of how institutions influence children's literature, including schools, libraries, and publishers
-echoes concerns about representation, diversity, and inclusivity (although the focus is mainly on gender/race, and less on disability, class, and/or sexuality)
-some good explanations of how to evaluate books, based on the mode of discourse (narration, exposition, description, argumentation), author's purpose, and visual analysis

Weaknesses:
-author tries to be playful, but sometimes reads as targeting a younger audience than college
-has a tendency to generate lists instead of analysis (i.e. lists of awards, lists of children's lit collections, lists of authors, etc.), which makes this a less productive read than it could otherwise have been
-why relegate a sample literary analysis of a text to an appendix?
-the chapter on fairytales/folktales is basically a lesson plan; other than biographies of the Grimms and other famous recorders of tales, there's not much substance to the chapter

I was initially excited about using this as the textbook for the OER children's lit course I'm developing, but now I'm a bit disappointed.

[Arden · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a book of lists and reads like it’s for a younger audience. The book just lands information right into your lap and seldom seems to address and help teach much.

3/5 because it was helpful and informative and offered what I had needed from it but I did not really like it.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Any book that parades itself as being in any way academically informational should NEVER cite Buzzfeed articles. And that's all I'll say on that.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

I used this in a community college Children’s Literature course and thought the level was fine. Some of the “current day” examples need to be updated. The last few chapters were a little thin and relied on repetitive lists. I really enjoyed the historical information but thought this needed to be more focused on literary aspects.

There’s a weird quirk where the text insists over and over that Children’s books really are Literature- going so far as to list the academic degrees held and awards won by various authors and illustrators. But we’re obviously taking a college course in it so who is having this argument?

I appreciate all the work that went into this FREE OER textbook, which includes videos and slide decks. There’s room for improvement but it was adequate for my course and very easy to work with.

[Lisa S. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was amazing! I used it as my course book for a children’s literature college class. It was so full of information, links, videos, book lists! Everything I needed to teach and I learned so much from reading it!