Overview

Seriously Playful is a collection of essays reflecting the interdiscursive nature of children's literary criticism. Originally presented as papers at the 5^th Australasian Children's Literature Association for Research Conference (Brisbane, 2001), the essays draw upon a range of critical theories, including theories of performativity and performance; linguistics; gender studies; literary studies; semiotics and art criticism; postcolonial theory; queer theory and film aesthetics. The contributors interpret the theme through a remarkable performance across a diversity of children's texts and genres: poem, song, novel, picture book, computer games, and film. Using sub-sections Words and Pictures; Gender and Race; Space and Time; Fun and Games, the end result is a seriously playful approach to textual analysis which is both stimulating and entertaining.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Introduction

Part 1: Words and Pictures

Chapter 1 'The Play's the Thing: the Ludic and the Ludicrous in Poetry for Children
Morag Styles
Chapter 2 Voice and Authority: Poetry by Young People in a New Zealand Newspaper in the 1980's
Jill Holt
Chapter 3 Performing Picture books
Elizabeth Parsons
Chapter 4 The Three Little Pigs and the Arts of Playfulness
Linda Knight
Chapter 5 Old Tale for New People: An Indonesian Curse Folktale Retold for Children
Clara Evi Citraningtyas
Chapter 6 Words, Rhyme, Rhythm and Song
Jennifer Rumsey

Part 2: Gender and Race

Chapter 7 Performance of Colour: Narratives of Passing in Contemporary Settler-Colony texts
Clare Bradford
Chapter 8 Mum's the Word: Mother as a Poetic and Pregnant Signifier
Vivienne Muller
Chapter 9 Funny Boys Make Strange Men: Male-to-Female Cross-Dressing in Children's Literature
Victoria Flanagan
Chapter 10 No Exit: Performing Masculinity
Roderick McGillis
Chapter 11 Feeling a Little Queer?: Performing Lesbian Desire and Identity in Youth Texts
Kerry Mallan
Chapter 12 Moving Bodies
Anita Jetnikoff

Part 3: Space and Time

Chapter 13 Revitalising the Past with the Present in Arthurian Retelling for Children
Emma Yarrow
Chapter 14 Playing in Deadly Earnest: Phillip Pulman and the Endangered Child
Lisa O'Connor
Chapter 15 Performing Difference: Young Adult Literature Post September 11
Jo Lampert
Chapter 16 Performing the Past: Language and Ideology in Selected Historical Novels of Katherine Paterson
Paul March
Chapter 17 Talking in Hobbit Tongue: The Lord of the Rings and Fantasies of language
Susan Carson
Chapter 18 The Space of Play in the Novels of David Almond
Anna Smith
Chapter 19 Performing Adolescence: Winners and Losers
Diana Hodge

Part 4: Fun and Games

Chapter 20 When Harry Met Lara: Performing the Quest in Blockbuster Films for young People
Sharyn Pearce
Chapter 21 'Doing Serious Work or Just Playing?': Computer Games and Pleasure in Subject English
Donna McGrath
Chapter 22 Playing Adrian Mole: Parody and Performative Adolescence
Heather Scutter
Chapter 23 Children's Play as Subversive Activity
Jeri Kroll
Chapter 24 The Harry Potter Challenge of Children's Literature
Jo Coward
Chapter 25 Performing Politics: Children as Conscience
Margot Hillel

About the Contributors
Index