The first study of life narratives produced for, about, and written by children, this book examines the recent popularity of children’s biographies and how they engage with the biggest issues of our time:
environmental change, health crises, education, and children’s personal and political development.
Beginning with a literary-historical overview, Children and Biography proceeds to examine 21st-century examples and trends such as illustrated texts including Women in Science, the Fantastically Great Women Who… books, Rebel Dogs, Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls, Kids Who Did, My Beautiful Birds and The Journey. The book also considers archives of children’s writings and drawings, in particular the testimonies of child asylum seekers, children’s biographical art, and ‘Lockdown diaries’ produced during the Covid-19 pandemic. By analyzing these works alongside empirical studies into how such material is received by child readers, and how texts generated by children are perceived both by them and their parents, this book provides new knowledge on how biographies for children are produced and read.
Comprehensive and original, Children and Biography, presents an ethical methodological framework for scholarly practice when reading, witnessing and interpreting children’s life narratives. The book offers a mandate for future researchers: to place children’s voices and writing at the centre of inquiries in ways that facilitate genuine agency for child authors.
Introduction: “Children and Life Narrative: Reading, Writing and Influence” Section 1: Biography, History and Knowledge Chapter One: “Biographies for children: a literary and cultural history” Chapter Two: “Little people, big dreams: biographies of the ‘great’” Chapter Three: “Making History, Changing the World: Science and History for children” Section 2: New Heroes Chapter Four: “Young heroes and Rebel Girls” Chapter Five: “Children’s Picture Books, asylum-seeking and citizenship” Chapter Six: “Tales of Trusty Hounds: posthuman biography for children.” Section three: New Directions—Life narratives by Children and Youth Chapter Seven: “Children’s life narratives of asylum-seeking: displacement, testimony and the ethics of witnessing” Chapter Eight: “Kids Like to Tell Stories about Others: Children and Biographical Practice” Chapter Nine: “Children’s Life Narrative during COVID-19—My Lockdown Diary” Conclusion Bibliography Index
Kate Douglas is Professor in English at Flinders University, Australia. She is the author of Contesting Childhood: Autobiography, Trauma and Memory (2010) and the co-author of Life Narratives and Youth Culture: Representation, Agency and Participation (2016, with Anna Poletti). Her edited collections include (with Ashley Barnwell) Research Methodologies for Auto/Biography Studies (2019). Kate is Head of the steering committee for the International Auto/Biography Association’s Asia-Pacific chapter.
Reviews for Children and Biography: Reading and Writing Life Stories
This is an essential book. In this wide-ranging study, Kate Douglas asks us to reconsider biography, by and for children, as acts of representation, inspiration, and education. The book moves effortlessly across theoretical disciplines, taking in an impressive variety of texts. The inclusion of children's voices and the respect given to their reading lives is a model. --Professor Claire Lynch, Brunel University London, UK
