| This study, designed as a systematic conceptual analysis, attempts to take account of significant efforts within the Anglo-American tradition to raise theoretical issues relevant to the criticism of children's literature. Central issues and concepts are identified and analyzed, according to standard techniques developed within the field of ordinary language philosophy, with the purpose of understanding and clarifying the assumptions upon which they rest.;The study concludes with the suggestion that the storytelling situation can serve as a fruitful organizing metaphor for a more adequate critical theory of children's literature. One of the primary tasks of the criticism of children's literature is to make a contribution to the process by which children enter the institutions of literary art within their cultures. Critics can contribute to this apprenticeship enterprise by (a) focusing their attention on the "ways of reading" implicated by given literary texts; (b) selecting texts for critical analysis which imply acts of reading within the competence and experience of young children; (c) articulating and evaluating the particular ways in which "reality" is explored in given works; and (d) establishing close contact with child readers and the adults who work most directly with them.;The following topics are analyzed: (a) "Fiction, Reality and Child Readers"; including a close look at how metaphors such as "fiction is deception", "fiction is truth", and "fiction is play" set the terms according to which children's literature texts are received, analyzed and assessed; (b) "The Idea of Children's Literature"; including an analysis of evaluative and descriptive uses of the term "literature"; an analysis of concepts of "children's literature", in terms of the key words separation, gradation and fusion; and a discussion of a dialectical approach to the definition of children's literature; (c) "The Criticism of Children's Literature: Some Fundamental Distinctions"; including an analysis of distinguishing features of the criticism of children's literature; and (d) "At One Remove: Adult Critics and the Evaluation of Literature for Children"; including an analysis of various approaches to incorporating a consideration of child readers into the evaluation of children's literature, such as experiential and developmental approaches; the notion of "the implied reader"; and a dialectical approach to evaluation. |
