Description
Book SynopsisCourtney Weikle-Mills discusses such characters as Goody Two-Shoes, Ichabod Crane, and Tom Sawyer in terms of how they reflect these conflicting ideals.
Trade ReviewThis tightly argued and convincing book reflects the extraordinary ambiguity that has almost always surfaced in thinking and writing for and about children, and it shows the extent to which the study of history and literature can inform each other. -- James Marten Journal of American History Well researched and engaging, filled with both factual information and insightful analysis. -- Chris Nesmith Children's Literature Association Quarterly This book is impressive for its breadth of scholarship, and it should stimulate discussion among its intended audience of academics and advanced undergraduates about children and childhood as metaphors for how citizenship was, and can be, defined. -- Gail Schmunk Murray New England Quarterly Weikle-Mills provides a fascinating new way to look at American conceptions of citizenship... Historians of childhood will find this book useful, as will anyone who wants to understand the changing position of children and the concept of responsible citizenship. -- Nancy Hathaway Steenburg American Historical Review The main strengths of Imaginary Citizens are its clarity of expression, explicit definition of terms, and easy interaction with multiple fields, including children's literature, early American literary, religious and political studies. The Year's Work in English Studies Weikle-Mills's rich investigation of connections between child readers and political empowerment significantly contributes to both the study of children's literature and the study of American social and political history. -- Thomas Fair Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments
Introduction: From Subjects to Citizens: The Politics of Childhood and Children's Literature
1. Youth as a Time of Choice: Children's Reading in Colonial New England
2. Affectionate Citizenship: Educating Child Readers for a New Nation
3. Child Readers of the Novel: The Problem of Childish Citizenship
4. Reading for Social Profit: Economic Citizenship as Children's Citizenship
5. Natural Citizenship: Children, Slaves, and the Book of Nature
Conclusion: The Legacy of the Fourteenth Amendment: LimitedThinking on Children's Citizenship
Notes
Index
