Suffer the Little Children: Uses of the Past in Jewish and African American Children's Literature - Rilegato

Eichler-levine, Jodi

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0814722997 ISBN 13: 9780814722992

Casa editrice: New York Univ Pr, 2013

Riassunto

Thiscompelling work examines classic and contemporary Jewish and African Americanchildren’s literature. Through close readings of selected titles publishedsince 1945, Jodi Eichler-Levine analyzes what is at stake in portraying religioushistory for young people, particularly when the histories in question aretraumatic ones. In the wake of the Holocaust and lynchings, of the MiddlePassage and flight from Eastern Europe's pogroms, children’s literatureprovides diverse and complicated responses to the challenge of representing difficultcollective pasts. In readingthe work of various prominent authors, including Maurice Sendak, Julius Lester,Jane Yolen, Sydney Taylor, and Virginia Hamilton, Eichler-Levine changes ourunderstanding of North American religions. She illuminates how narratives ofboth suffering and nostalgia graft future citizens into ideals of Americanliberal democracy, and into religious communities that can be understoodaccording to recognizable notions of reading, domestic respectability, andnational sacrifice.  Ifchildren are the idealized recipients of the past, what does it mean to telltales of suffering to children, and can we imagine modes of memory that movepast utopian notions of children as our future? Suffer the Little Childrenasks readers to alter their worldviews about children’s literature as an“innocent” enterprise, revisiting the genre in a darker and more unsettledlight.

Su questo libro

Recensione:

"Illuminates the importance of fear and suffering in shaping African American and Jewish children's literature. ...Gives a cogent understanding of how each community's difficult historical narratives coupled with their religious and social lives have helped to prepare children to engage an American civic life that has been hostile at times to their ethnic groups." --Anthea Butler, University of Pennsylvania

"What's so exciting about Suffer the Little Children is that it brings a deeply grounded religious studies perspective to bear on contemporary American children's literature in ways that enrich both the study of literature and our understanding of childhood's role in U.S. Judeo-Christian cultures. By focusing on American children's books by and about Jews and African Americans and the core tropes that interweave through these texts - from the idea of 'chosenness' to the haunting spectre of genocide - Eichler-Levine gives new meaning to the idea of the 'sacralized child.' Suffer the Little Children sheds new light on the relationships between race, religion, citizenship, and childhood. It also reminds us once more of why children's literature provides such a revealing lens for analyzing American culture." --Julia Mickenberg, author of Learning from the Left: Children's Literature, the Cold War, and Radical Politics in the U.S.

"Exhibits an impressive command of multiple disciplines to offer a compelling of reading of Jewish and African American children's literatures...Eichler-Levine's close readings of youth literatures and reader responses are always clear and often delightful as she deftly works at the crossroads, providing new signposts for navigating vexing questions at the intersections of religion, citizenship, trauma, and redemption." Liora Gubkin, author of You Shall Tell Your Children: Holocaust Memory in American Passover Ritual "Jodi Eichler-Levine's insightful book illuminates the importance of fear and suffering in shaping African American and Jewish children's literature. Her book gives a cogent understanding of how each community's difficult historical narratives coupled with their religious and social lives have helped to prepare children to engage an American civic life that has been hostile at times to their ethnic groups." --Anthea Butler, University of Pennsylvania

L'autore:

Jodi Eichler-Levine is Associate Professor of Religious Studies and the Berman Professor of Jewish Civilization at Lehigh University (PA).

Su questa edizione

• Editore: New York Univ Pr
• Data di pubblicazione: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0814722997
• ISBN 13: 9780814722992
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero di pagine: 227