Tutorial in Children’s Literature

St. Hildas, University of Oxford

You’ll observe that each week’s schedule is structured along a primary text, along
with some suggested secondary references. At this stage I think it’s best to keep the
exact tutorial topics flexible—we’ll work them out as we engage with the respective
texts. Let’s structure each class this way: the first assignment is a response paper that
doesn’t require much secondary material, and we’ll take it from there. On Week 1
we’ll discuss the text(s) you’ll write on for Week 2 (which you’ll submit in our Week
2 class), and so on & so forth.

Wk 1

Big Toe Radio Show (BBC 7).Please listen to at least two programmes and write a
response paper.

Wk 2

Child, Lauren. Utterly Me, Clarice Bean. London: Orchard, 2003.

Steig, William. CDC?. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux,1984.

Nodelman, Perry. Words about Pictures: The Narrative Art of Children’s Picture
Books. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1988.

Wk 3

Langen, Annette. Letters from Felix: A Little Rabbit on a World Tour.

Illus. Constanza Droop. New York: Abbeville, 1994.

Sis, Peter. The Tree of Life: Charles Darwin. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux,
2003.

Shavit, Zohar. “The Concept of Childhood and Children’s Folktales,” Maria Tatar, ed.
The Classic Fairy Tales. London: Norton, 1999: 317-32

Wk 4

Hamilton, Virginia. In the Beginning: Creation Stories from Around the World. Illus.
Barry Moser. New York: Harcourt, 1988.

Benjamin, Walter. “The Storyteller,” Illuminations. Ed. & intro. Hannah Arendt.
Trans. Harry Zohn. New York: Schocken, 1968: 83-109.

Wk 5

Brothers Grimm. Household Stories from the Collection of the Brothers Grimm. New
York: Dover, 1963.
Tatar, Maria. “Sex and Violence: The Hard Core of Fairy Tales,” Classic Fairy Tales:
364-73.

Warner, Marina. From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and their Tellers.
New York, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, l995.

Wk 6

Versions of Red Riding Hood, Classic Fairy Tales.

Windling, Terri & Ellen Datlow, ed. Black Thorn White Rose. New York: W.
Morrow, 1994. “Introduction,” and “Silver and Gold” (a modern retelling of Red
Riding Hood) by Ellen Steiber.

Propp, Vladimir. “Folklore and Literature,” and extract from Morphology of the
Folktale, Classic Fairy Tales: 378-87.

Wk 7

Aoki, Yuya. Get Backers Series. Illus. Rando Ayamine. Tokyo: Tokyopop.

Zipes, Jack. “Breaking the Disney Spell,” Classic Fairy Tales: 332-52.

Wk 8

Newbery Medal winner:

Perkins, Lynne Rae. Criss Cross. Pine Plains, NY: Greenwillow Books, 2006.

Tutor: Malini Roy