Children and Biography: Reading and Writing Life Stories

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Description

The first study of life narratives produced for, about, and written by children, this book examines the recent popularity of childrens biographies and how they engage with the biggest issues of our time: environmental change, health crises, education, and childrens personal and political development. Beginning with a literary-historical overview, Children and Biography proceeds to examine 21st-century examples and trends such as illustrated texts including Women in Science, the Fantastically Great Women Who books, Rebel Dogs, Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls, Kids Who Did, My Beautiful Birds and The Journey. The book also considers archives of childrens writings and drawings, in particular the testimonies of child asylum seekers, childrens biographical art, and Lockdown diaries produced during the Covid-19 pandemic. By analyzing these works alongside empirical studies into how such material is received by child readers, and how texts generated by children are perceived both by them and their parents, this book provides new knowledge on how biographies for children are produced and read. Comprehensive and original, Children and Biography, presents an ethical methodological framework for scholarly practice when reading, witnessing and interpreting childrens life narratives. The book offers a mandate for future researchers: to place childrens voices and writing at the centre of inquiries in ways that facilitate genuine agency for child authors.

Reviews

This is an essential book. In this wide-ranging study, Kate Douglas asks us to reconsider biography, by and for children, as acts of representation, inspiration, and education. The book moves effortlessly across theoretical disciplines, taking in an impressive variety of texts. The inclusion of childrens voices and the respect given to their reading lives is a model. * Professor Claire Lynch, Brunel University London, UK *

Author Bio

Kate Douglas is Professor in English at Flinders University, Australia. She is the author of Contesting Childhood: Autobiography, Trauma and Memory (2010) and the co-author of Life Narratives and Youth Culture: Representation, Agency and Participation (2016, with Anna Poletti). Her edited collections include (with Ashley Barnwell) Research Methodologies for Auto/Biography Studies (2019). Kate is Head of the steering committee for the International Auto/Biography Associations Asia-Pacific chapter.