Overview

Contributions by Rebecca A. Brown, Justine Gieni, Holly Harper, Emily L. Hiltz, A. Robin Hoffman, Kirsten Kowalewski, Peter C. Kunze, Jorie Lagerwey, Nick Levey, Jessica R. McCort, and Janani Subramanian Dark novels, shows, and films targeted toward children and young adults are proliferating wildly. It is even more crucial now to understand the methods by which such texts have traditionally operated and how those methods have been challenged, abandoned, and appropriated. Reading in the Dark fills a gap in criticism devoted to children’s popular culture by concentrating on horror, an often-neglected genre. These scholars explore the intersection between horror, popular culture, and children’s cultural productions, including picture books, fairy tales, young adult literature, television, and monster movies. Reading in the Dark looks at horror texts for children with deserved respect, weighing the multitude of benefits they can provide for young readers and viewers. Refusing to write off the horror genre as campy, trite, or deforming, these essays instead recognize many of the texts and films categorized as “scary” as among those most widely consumed by children and young adults. In addition, scholars consider how adult horror has been domesticated by children’s literature and culture, with authors and screenwriters turning that which was once horrifying into safe, funny, and delightful books and films. Scholars likewise examine the impetus behind such re-envisioning of the adult horror novel or film as something appropriate for the young. The collection investigates both the constructive and the troublesome aspects of scary books, movies, and television shows targeted toward children and young adults. It considers the complex mechanisms by which these texts communicate overt messages and hidden agendas, and it treats as well the readers’ experiences of such mechanisms.

Full Product Details

9781496814890

Table of Contents

Reviews

Reading in the Dark is an ambitious reconfiguring of horror and children's literature, reaching back to our earliest texts and pretexts. True to the title, the chapters in this collection are about both the impossible (reading in the dark) and about the giddily terrified welcome we have given to our monsters since our earliest days, as we read the dark into our fairy tales, our picture books, our films, our poetry, and our prose. - Joe Sutliff Sanders, associate professor of children's literature in the English Department at Kansas State University

Reading in the Dark is an ambitious reconfiguring of horror and children's literature, reaching back to our earliest texts and pretexts. True to the title, the chapters in this collection are about both the impossible (reading in the dark) and about the giddily terrified welcome we have given to our monsters since our earliest days, as we read the dark into our fairy tales, our picture books, our films, our poetry, and our prose. - Joe Sutliff Sanders, associate professor of children's literature in the English Department at Kansas State University

Author Information

Jessica R. McCort, Washington, Pennsylvania, is assistant professor and coordinator of the Writing Intensive Program at Point Park University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her work has appeared in a variety of journals and edited volumes.

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