Children and Biography: Reading and Writing Life Stories

This book explores the recent popularity of children's biographies and their engagement with important issues such as environmental change, health crises, education, and personal and political development. It examines 21st-century examples and trends, including illustrated texts, archives of children's writings and drawings, and testimonies of child asylum seekers. It provides new knowledge on how biographies for children are produced and read and offers an ethical methodological framework for scholarly practice when reading, witnessing, and interpreting children's life narratives.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 232 pages
Publication date: 21 March 2024
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

This groundbreaking book delves into the captivating realm of children's life narratives, exploring their recent surge in popularity and their profound engagement with pressing contemporary issues such as environmental change, health crises, education, and personal and political development. Providing a comprehensive literary-historical overview, it examines 21st-century examples and trends, including illustrated texts like "Women in Science," "Fantastically Great Women Who...," "Rebel Dogs," "Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls," "Kids Who Did," "My Beautiful Birds," and "The Journey." Moreover, it delves into archives of children's writings and drawings, encompassing testimonies of child asylum seekers, biographical art, and "Lockdown diaries" produced during the COVID-19 pandemic. By meticulously analyzing these works alongside empirical studies on how children receive and perceive these narratives, the book offers invaluable insights into the production and reception of biographies for children. With its comprehensive and original approach, "Children and Biography" presents an ethical methodological framework for scholars engaged in the reading, witnessing, and interpretation of children's life narratives. It serves as a compelling mandate for future researchers, urging them to prioritize children's voices and writing, fostering genuine agency for child authors in their research endeavors.

Dimension: 234 x 156 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781350236400