| This thesis examines the changing idea of what constitutes a "text" in twenty-first century children's literature and children's culture. Beginning with John Newbery's A Little Pretty Pocket-Book (1744), through the Golden Age of Children's Literature—that of the 1860s to 1900—and as a result of the shift to a children's culture in the 1950s onward, my project interrogates the historical rhizome of children's literature and children's culture. The historical rhizome, which serves as the framework for this thesis, indicates the emergence of a fourth branch in the rhizome in our current epistemic mutation to the digitized text. Using J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series as a case study, this thesis illuminates the ways Rowling's texts can be used as a model to follow in the historical rhizome due to her twenty-first century awareness of audience and text. |
