Risky Business: Talking about Children in Children’s Literature Criticism

Embracing a critical paradigm that holds that children do not participate in the realm of children’s literature and culture has itself caused scholars to ignore what young people have said, written, and done in the realm of children’s literature and culture. This essay contends that the time has come to articulate not only new theories about what it means to be a child, but also a new paradigm for how to do children’s literature criticism, one that builds on but also decisively departs from Jacqueline Rose’s vision of children’s literature as an adult practice.