Overgange. Børne- og ungdomslitteratur og barndomsopfattelser i bevægelse

Resumé

“Transitions. Children’s Literature and Young Adult Fiction on the Move”

The article gives an overview of current changes and tendencies within children’s literature and young adult fiction, as well as the research related to this field. Until recently, the book was considered the primary medium for literature for children, but the production of narratives that move across media is expanding. This calls for approaches that take the interaction of sound, image, verbal text and medium into consideration. Today, children and young people are considered individuals with agency, with the right and opportunity to influence their own situation, and this has led to an increasing interest in children’s use and production of texts. The article discusses aspects of this development, links it to a historical framework, and proposes a model that focuses on the interaction between different modes of expressions, media, producers and readers. In continuation of this, the article debates approaches to childhood within children’s literature studies, in particular the ‘kinship model’ proposed by Marah Gubar. This model suggests a focus on the continuum and the similarities between children and adults, instead of an approach to children that stresses their deficits or the differences between children and adults. The article concludes that the increasing interaction between children’s books and other media calls for interaction between children’s literature studies and media studies, and that many aspects point to a need for viewing the child as an active agent in the use and production of texts.