Representing the Holocaust in Children's Literature

Author: Lydia Kokkola Series: Children's Literature and Culture

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Summary

Description

This work examines how the Holocaust is represented in fiction for children and young adults. Kokkola takes on the perspective of the contemporary child, who lacks personal knowledge of the Holocaust, and explores how the unspeakable can be represented for young readers. She also questions why children want to read Holocaust Fiction and how they negotiate the boundary between fact and fiction.

Critic Reviews

“"Kokkola is committed to ethical criticism. She asks repeatedly how literature affects children's thinking and beliefs about the Holocaust and fascism. This is a welcome approach, which is at its best, in my view...when it urges us to think seriously about the profound impact that literature can have on young readers...Kokkola combines theory and criticism of children's literature with Holocaust studies in productive and knowledgeable ways." --The Lion and the Unicorn "Lydia Kokkola's study...is keenly narratological, and she often draws on formalist and structuralist approaches as she explicates texts. Like many before her, she is concerned with narratives that simultaneously reveal and conceal as they deal with horrific events, but the kinds of questions she asks focus specifically on how information can be withheld of divulged...Kokkola's approach also brings new dimensions to previous discussions of children's literature and the Holocaust." --Prooftexts: A Journal of Jewish Literary History olocaust." --Prooftexts: A Journal of Jewish Literary History”

"Kokkola is committed to ethical criticism. She asks repeatedly how literature affects children’s thinking and beliefs about the Holocaust and fascism. This is a welcome approach, which is at its best, in my view...when it urges us to think seriously about the profound impact that literature can have on young readers...Kokkola combines theory and criticism of children’s literature with Holocaust studies in productive and knowledgeable ways." --The Lion and the Unicorn

"Lydia Kokkola's study...is keenly narratological, and she often draws on formalist and structuralist approaches as she explicates texts. Like many before her, she is concerned with narratives that simultaneously reveal and conceal as they deal with horrific events, but the kinds of questions she asks focus specifically on how information can be withheld of divulged...Kokkola's approach also brings new dimensions to previous discussions of children's literature and the Holocaust." --Prooftexts: A Journal of Jewish Literary History

About the Author

Lydia Kokkola is a Collegium Researcher at the Turku Institute for Advanced Studies(TIAS) University of Turku, Finland. She is also Adjunct Professor of Children's Literature in English at Åbo Akademi University, Finland.