Voices of the Other

<p>This book offers a variety of approaches to children's literature from a postcolonial perspective that includes discussions of cultural appropriation race theory pedagogy as a colonialist activity and multiculturalism. The eighteen essays divide into three sections: Theory Colonialism and Postcolonialism. The first section sets the theoretical framework for postcolonial studies; essays here deal with issues of otherness and cultural difference as well as the colonialist implications of pedagogic practice. These essays confront our relationships with the child and childhood as sites for the exertion of our authority and control. The second section presents discussions of the colonialist mindset in children's and young-adult texts from the turn of the century. Here works by writers of animal stories in Canada the U.S. and Britain; works of early Australian colonialist literature; and Frances Hodgson Burnett's <i>A Little Princess </i>come under the scrutiny of our postmodern reading practices. Section Three deals directly with contemporary texts for children that manifest both a postcolonial and a neo-colonial content and includes studies of children's literature from Canada Australia Africa the Caribbean and the United States.</p>