Liminal Spaces in Children’s and Young Adult Literature: Stories from the In Between
Ebook
Overview
Scholars in the field of children’s literature studies began taking an interest in the concept of “liminal spaces” around the turn of the 21st century. For the first time, Liminal Spaces in Children’s and Young Adult Literature: Stories from the In Between brings together in one volume a collection of original essays on this topic by leading children’s literature scholars. The contributors in this collection take a wide variety of approaches to their explorations of liminal spaces in children’s and young adult literature. Some discuss how children’s books portray the liminal nature of physical spaces, such as the children’s room in a library. Others deal with more abstract portrayals, such as the imaginary space where Max goes to escape the reality of his bedroom in Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are. All of the contributors, however, provide keen insights into how liminal spaces figure in children’s and young adult literature.
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Exploring the Liminal Spaces in Children’s and Young Adult Literature, Mark I. West
Part One: Essays Focusing on Themes and Genres
Chapter One: The Library as a Liminal Space: A Composite Portrait, Claudia Mills
Chapter Two: “There’s more to life than mops and pails”: Liminal Spaces in Picturebooks, Anne K. Phillips
Chapter Three: Negotiating Generational Conflict: Queer and Trans Interventions in YA Fiction, Jonathan Alexander
Chapter Four: The Healing Power of Liminal Spaces in African American Children’s Literature, Mark I. West
Chapter Five: Asian Americans Find Liminal Spaces to Combat Racism and Erasure, Katharine Kittredge and Paige D’Encarnacao
Chapter Six: Jouets Trouvés: Found Objects and Porthole Fantasies in Children’s Liminal Spaces, Scott G. Eberle
Chapter Seven: Secret Gardens and Spiritual Gestation: The Fecundity of Liminal Metaphors in the Children's Literature of Frances Hodgson Burnett and C. S. Lewis, Terry Lindvall
Part Two: Essays Focusing on Individual Novels
Chapter Eight: The Architecture of Girlhood: Gendered Spaces in Louisa Tuthill’s Reality; or the Millionaire’s Daughter, Laura Hakala
Chapter Nine: Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows as Horror: Children, Motorcars, and the Liminal Space of the Road, Eric L. Tribunella
Chapter Ten: Riding “an enchanted horse with invisible wings”: Velvet Brown's Liminal Space in National Velvet, Kathy Merlock Jackson
Chapter Eleven: An Escape to Liminal Spaces in Katherine Paterson’s Bridge to Terabithia, Trina Marie Rumfelt
Chapter Twelve: Carrying My Family in a Suitcase: Exploring Liminal Space in Christopher Paul Curtis’s Bud, Not Buddy, Jan Susina
Chapter Thirteen: It’s a Small Liminal World After All: Being on the Limbo Ride in Libba Bray’s Going Bovine, Michele D. Castleman
Chapter Fourteen: The Hope and Hardship of Liminality: Homelessness in Katherine Applegate's Crenshaw, Paula T. Connolly
Chapter Fifteen: Double Consciousness and Liminality in Angeline Boulley’s Firekeeper’s Daughter, Sarah Minslow
About the Contributors
The essays in Liminal Spaces in Children’s and Young Adult Literature, edited by West, considers multiple interpretations of liminality in children’s and young adult literature. The collection is divided into two parts. The first part of the collection includes essays on “clusters” of books written for children or young adults exploring themes and genres that consider connections between texts in their treatment of liminal spaces. Examples include Claudia Mills’s chapter, which considers children’s books set in libraries, examining the library as a physical liminal space. Scott G. Eberle’s analysis of found objects and portal fantasies in the work of C.S. Lewis and Francis Hodgson Burnett considers imaginative, or abstract, liminal spaces. The second part of the collection includes essays about individual works in which the author’s use of liminal space is an essential component of the story. Examples include Trina Marie Rumfelt’s chapter focusing on Kathrine Paterson’s use of liminal space as escape from the pressures of reality in The Bridge to Terabithia. Sarah Minslow’s chapter considers liminality and double consciousness in Angeline Boulley’s young adult novel The Firekeeper’s Daughter, whose protagonist is Ojibwe and white. Recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty; professionals.
A lively and diverse set of meditations on liminality in and around children’s literature, as observable in both single texts (as in the essays in Part Two) and across multitextual and/or multigeneric registers (as in Part One). Addressing titles and contexts both familiar and surprising, contributors show how literature makes the most of liminality’s affordances, enlarging our options for thinking, learning, and living.
- Title: Liminal Spaces in Children’s and Young Adult Literature: Stories from the In Between
- Authors: Mark I. West, Jonathan Alexander, Michele D. Castleman, Paula T. Connolly, Paige D'Encarnacao, Scott Eberle, Laura Hakala, Kathy Merlock Jackson, Katharine Kittredge, Terry Lindvall, Claudia Mills, Alessia Silvestrin, Anne Phillips, Trina Marie Rumfelt, Jan Susina, Eric L. Tribunella
- Publisher: Lexington Books
- Print Publication Date: 2024
- Logos Release Date: 2024
- Pages: 224
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781666938883, 9781666938876, 1666938874, 1666938882
- Resource ID: LLS:9781666938883
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2025-04-21T23:33:08Z
Mark I. West is professor in the English department at the University of North Carolina in Charlotte.