University of Strathclyde

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Contemporary Children's Literature, 1970-present

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One of the marked aspects of contemporary children's literature is the emergence of fiction aimed at, and dealing with the problems of, teenagers/young adults. Such literature has dealt with sex, sexuality, sexual identity, pregnancy, racial identity and racism, drugs, child abuse, bullying and so on. Inevitably, some of the books that have explored these issues in ways that reflect the experience of modern teenagers have provoked controversy. Another feature of children's literature in the period is the emergence of children's books in English that explore multiculturalism and the postcolonial experience of children outside of Britain and the United States. There are also books that draw on postmodernist impulses in order to experiment with narrative form and to break with the conventions of closure (happy ever after) that have characterised children's literature for a couple of centuries. In other words, the monolithic Anglo-centric view of innocent childhood that had prevailed in children's books written in English from the eighteenth to the twentieth century has recently given way to the notion that childhood is differently shaped by different cultural, sexual, ethnic, and national contexts.

Jane Gardam: a prolific writer for all ages; A Long Way from Verona (1971) is a book about wartime experience in Teesside that anticipates the 'teenage novel' (Jordanhill); Flight of the Maidens (2001) is a powerful 'coming of age novel'.

K.M. Peyton: 'Flambards' quartet (1967-1982) a 'pony story' that follows its heroine from childhood to womanhood; Pennington’s Seventeenth Summer (1970) brought the school story up to date and signals the shift towards teenage readers; one of my favourite authors of teenage fiction. Jordanhill.

Virginia Hamilton: The Planet of Junior Brown (1971) – 'a story of strength and courage, set in New York City and featuring two original and memorable characters' (Children's Literature, p.282); Jaguarundi (1995) – a picturebook that 'is not just a fantasy in the African folklore tradition of animals who talk; it is also a realistic information book about endangered animals, a rainforest science book, a book that resonates with historical references to slavery, African American and African life, and a multicultural book, focussing as it does on creatures of different colour and background learning to live together'; Hamilton is a 'postmodernist' writer who, 'as well as exploring the African American female quest for self, ... is an important multiculturalist, as seen in her novella Bluish (1999) ... and an inventive ethnic feminist, as revealed in many of her books, from Arilla Sun Down to Second Cousins (1998)'; she is 'among the best and the most important of children's and young adults' authors' (Children's Books, p.316). Four books in Jordanhill; The Planet of Junior Brown is on order for Main Library. Virginia Hamilton's Homepage

Penelope Lively: Astercote (1970), The Driftway (1972), The Ghost of Thomas Kemp (1973) (winner of the Carnegie Medal), The House in Norham Gardens (1974), and A Stitch in Time (1976) (winner of the Whitbread Award). Jordanhill. Penelope Lively's Homepage

Nina Bawden: a prolific writer of children's novels committed to social and emotional realism, including Carrie's War (1975). Jordanhill. Nina Bawden's Homepage

Rosemary Sutcliff: a prolific and important writer of historical fiction for children and adults, including Sun Horse, Moon Horse (1977), Song for a Dark Queen (1978), and The Shining Company (1990). Jordanhill.

Jill Paton Walsh: award winning writer for children's books such as The Dolphin Crossing (1967), Fireweed (1969), Goldengrove (1972), Unleaving (1976), A Chance Child (1978), A Parcel of Patterns (1983), Gaffer Samson's Luck (1986), and Grace (1991). Jordanhill. Jill Paton Walsh's Homepage

Richard Adams, Watership Down (1972); an animal story that won the Carnegie Medal and the Guardian Award. Jordanhill.

Robert Cormier: an America author whose books for young adults deal with extreme situations in often pessimistic ways; novels such as I am the Cheese (1977) and Tenderness (1998) have been (mostly) well received by young readers but criticised by adults for their bleak vision of the world. Jordanhill.

Mildred D. Taylor: African American author of a series of novels about the resistance to racial oppression in America, the most famous of which is the Newbery Award winning Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry (1976). Jordanhill.

Toeckey Jones, Go Well, Stay Well (1979); a novel for young adults about an uprising of school children against apartheid in South Africa. Jordanhill.

Ann Harries, The Sound of the Gora (1980); a novel for young adults that critically examines apartheid in South Africa. One copy on order for Main Library.

Lois Lowry: a writer who deals with challenging themes in novels written for children and young adults: A Summer to Die (1977) is about a sister dying of cancer; Find a Stranger, Say Good-Bye (1978) is about a teenage girl looking for her real mother; Rabble Starkey (1987) is about a young girl born to a single teenage mother; Number the Stars (1990), which won the Newbery Medal, is about the Nazi occupation of Denmark; The Giver (1993) is a future fiction about a dystopian society. Jordanhill. Lois Lowry's Website

Robert Westall: prolific, award-winning author of novels (often set in his native Tynside) about children's experience of war or the supernatural. His first novel for children, The Machine Gunners (1975), won the Carnegie Medal and prompted people to send him accounts of their childhood experience in the Second World War - published as Children of the Blitz (1985). Two of his best novels about World War Two are Blitzcat (1989) and The Kingdom by the Sea (1990). Extensive holdings in Jordanhill.

Alan Garner: The Owl Service (1967) and Red Shift (1973) 'experiment controversially with dialogue and structure to treat adolescent sexuality, class and violence' (Children's Books, p.280); Garner is also concerned with the interaction between past and present, as in 'The Stone Book Quartet' – The Stone Book (1976), Granny Reardun (1977), The Aimer Gate (1978), and Tom Fobble's Day (1979). Some in Main Library as well as Jordanhill.

Farrukh Dhondy: a British-Indian author whose East End at Your Feet (1976), which explores ethnic, social and sexual issues through the eyes of British and British-Asian teenagers in the 1970s, won the Other Award. Jordanhill.

Ursula K. Le Guin: an acclaimed American author of science fiction and fantasy novels for young readers, the best known of which are the 'Earthsea' quartet – A Wizard of Earthsea (1968), The Tombs of Atuan (1970), The Farthest Shore (1971), and Tehanu (1990). Jordanhill. Official Website

Judy Blume: an enormously popular writer (more than 70 million copies of her books have been sold) who deals with 'problem' issues in the lives of teen and pre-teen American girls; her first novel, Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret (1970), about the anxieties of a girl on the cusp of puberty, set the tone for what was to follow; Forever (1975) is an explicit book about sex from the point of view of a teenage girl – it is still banned in a number of states in America; more recent books include Here's to You, Rachel Robinson (1993). None of this is great literature, but it does represent and speak to a lot of modern teenage girls in a language they recognise as their own. Several of Blume's novels are in Jordanhill Library; one copy of Forever is on order for the Main Library. Judy Blume's Home Base

Deborah Hautzig: Hey, Dollface (1978), about sexual attraction between two adolescent schoolgirls, and Second Star to the Right (1981), about anorexia. Jordanhill.

Robin McKinley: tends to adapt and re-write fairy tales for feminist ends, as in her first novel Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast (1978); The Blue Sword (1982) and The Hero and the Crown (1984) (which won the Newbery Award) are historical romances/fantasies with strong heroines. More recent books include The Outlaws of Sherwood (1988) and Deerskin (1993). Only a few of McKinley's novels are in Jordanhill Library; Beauty is on order for the Main Library.

Beverley Naidoo: a South African writer whose novels for children – such as Journey to Jo'burg (1985) and No Turning Back (1995) – expose the oppression of black children both during and after apartheid. Jordanhill. Homepage.

Berlie Doherty: Granny was a Buffer Girl (1987) (a Carnegie Medal winning book); Dear Nobody (1991) – a formally interesting book about a teenage relationship and the different impact of pregnancy on the girl and boy involved (I like this book a lot: it nearly made it onto the class); Holly Starcross (2001) is a more recent book. Jordanhill. Official Website

Roald Dahl: one of the most successful and most controversial authors of children's books; children tend to love them, while some parents and critics are less enthusiastic; his titles include James and the Giant Peach (1961) and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1967) (one of the most popular children's books ever); my personal favourite is Matilda (1988), which is why it's in the class. Large holdings in Jordanhill Library. See The Official Roald Dahl Website

Laurence Yep: Chinese-American author of novels for children and young adults that explore the implications of being bi-cultural; his books include The Star Fisher (1992), Dragonwings (1975), Child of the Owl (1978), Thief of Hearts (1995), Ribbons (1996) and The Cook's Family (1998). Dragonwings is on order for the Main Library.

Rosa Guy: co-founder of the Harlem Writers' Guild who has written a number of books for children and young adults that deal with racial issues in the USA, including The Friends (1973), Ruby (1976), Edith Jackson (1978), and Mother Crocodile (1982). Jordanhill.

James Berry: a British-Caribbean poet whose A Thief in the Village and Other Stories (1987), a collection of short stories for children set in the Caribbean, won the Smarties Prize; he has published other works of fiction for children, together with two collections of poetry: When I Dance (1988), which won the Signal Poetry Award, and Playing a Dazzler (1996). Jordanhill.

Janet and Allan Ahlberg: award-winning and impressive producers of picture books for young children. Numerous books in Jordanhill Library.

Dick King-Smith: prolific and huge-selling author of books mainly about animals and mainly for young children; his The Sheep-Pig (1983) won the Guardian Fiction Award and was filmed as Babe. Numerous books in Jordanhill Library.

William Mayne: prolific, prize-winning author of fiction for children and young adults; A Grass Rope (1958) won the Carnegie Medal; Low Tide (1992) won the Guardian Children's Fiction Award. Jordanhill.

Margaret Mahy: prolific, prize-winning author from New Zealand of books for children and young adults, including The Haunting (1982), The Changeover (1984), Memory (1987), The Catalogue of the Universe (1985), and The Tricksters (1986). Jordanhill.

Jan Mark: British author who received the Carnegie Medal for her first novel Thunder and Lightenings (1974) and has gone on to publish a number of novels and collections of short stories for children and young adults - including Nothing to be Afraid Of (1980). Jordanhill.

Aidan Chambers: novels that, in part, explore elements of same-sex sexuality; Dance on My Grave (1982); Postcards From No Man's Land (1999) – winner of the Carnegie Medal. Jordanhill. Official Site

Nancy Garden: Annie on My Mind (1982) – one of the best books about teenage lesbians which has been both critically acclaimed and burned in the USA; the same issue is developed in Lark in the Morning (1991) and Good Moon Rising (1996). Annie on My Mind and Meeting Melanie (2002) are in the Main Library. Nancy Garden's Web Site

Nadia Wheatley: Australian writer of historical and political fiction for children and young adults, often employing innovative narrative techniques; The Blooding (1987) addresses issues of same-sex sexuality. Not in Strathclyde's libraries and not in print.

Jenny Pausacker: What Are Ya (1987); Getting Somewhere (1999) – young adult novels that explore contemporay issues such as lesbian sexuality or the relationship between identical twins. The latter is on order for the Main Library.

Morris Gleitzman: Two Weeks with the Queen (1989) uses humour to deal with leukemia, AIDS and childhood death. Jordanhill. Website

Michelle Magorian: her first novel, Goodnight Mister Tom (1981), which won the Guardian Award, deals with child abuse in the Second World War and is one of my favourite children's books; most of her novels are set in or around the Second World War, and I love them all: Back Home (1985); A Little Love Song (1991); Cuckoo in the Nest (1994); and A Spoonful of Jam (1998). Jordanhill. Her long-awaited new novel, Just Henry (2008) revisits femiliar territory with flair.

Salman Rushdie ventured into children's books with Haroun and the Sea of Stories (1990) – a self-consciously intertextual post-modern 'sea of stories' that fuses Indian and Western culture. Jordanhill.

Rachel Anderson: author of children's novels that explore history, disability, and war; Paper Faces (1991), about a young child's experience of the end of the Second World War, won the Guardian Children's Fiction Award. Jordanhill.

Linda Newbery: novels for children and young adults that explore 20th-century history, especially the two world wars, from the perspective of female heroines - particularly in the Some Other War trilogy (1990-92) and The Shouting Wind trilogy (1995-96). Jordanhill. Homepage

Elizabeth Laird, Kiss the Dust (1991); the story of a Kurdish family (focusing on their daughter Tara) as they flee from persecution in Iraq and eventually end up in Britain; timely political education in a compelling story. Jordanhill.

Anne Fine: former Children's Laureate; her numerous books for children and young adults include Round Behind the Ice-house (1981), Madame Doubtfire (1987), Bill's New Frock (1989), and The Tulip Touch (1996) – the Whitbread Children's Book of the Year which deals with the possibility that some children may be or become evil. Jordanhill. Homepage

Alison Prince: has written more than 40 books; her many novels for children include The Sherwood Hero (1995; winner of the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize), Second Chance (2000; winner of the Scottish Children's Book Award) and How's Business (1988; shortlisted for the Smarties Book Prize). Prince has interestingly attempted to break down the distance between adult author and child reader. How's Business was written in conjunction with the children of a primary school in Lincolnshire; more recently, The Summerhouse (2004), whose content deals with a collaboration between an adult author and a group of school children as they create a children's book together, emerged out of a similar project. See her Homepage.

David Almond: Skellig (1998) won both the Carnegie Medal and the Whitbread Children's Book of the Year Award. Jordanhill. Homepage

Lemony Snicket, The Bad Beginning (1999), the first book of A Series of Unfortunate Events, which plays with and challenges the conventions of children's literature. Jordanhill. Homepage

Philip Pullman has written a number of books for children and young adults, but his masterpiece is the ‘His Dark Materials Trilogy’ (1995-2000): Northern Lights (1995) (which won the Carnegie Award and the Guardian Award), The Subtle Knife (1997), and The Amber Spyglass (2000); some critics are calling this trilogy one of the greatest works of fiction ever (for adults as well as children), and I can see why. Jordanhill. Philip Pullman's Website

Margo Lanagan: Touching Earth Lightly (1996); a powerful and devastating story of the friendship between two very different teenage girls. On order for Main Library.

Ian McEwan: in addition to his adult books about childhood (such as Cement Garden and The Child in Time), McEwan has written two texts for children - Rose Blanche (1985), a picture book illustrated by Roberto Innocenti, about the experiences of a German child during the Winter of 1944-45 (in Jordanhill Library), and The Daydreamer (1996), a series of connected stories in which the 10 year old protagonist undergoes a series of metamorphoses (on order for Main Library).

Jamila Gavin: an Anglo-Indian author whose Surya trilogy – The Wheel of Surya (1992), The Eye of the Horse (1994) and The Track of the Wind (1994) – follows the fortunes of a brother and sister in the period 1947-1951 and oscillates between India and England; she has also written a number of books for younger readers, but my favourite of her books is Coram Boy (2000), which is a brilliant exploration of different kinds of childhood in eighteenth-century England and won the Whitbread Children's Book of the Year Award; Out of India (1997) is a fascinating autobiographical account, written for children, of her own childhood experience in India and England during the Second World War and the struggle for independence. Jordanhill.

Sally Prue, Cold Tom (2001); a highly acclaimed first novel focussing on an elfin character trying to fit in with and make sense of the human world. On order for Main Library.

Benjamin Zephaniah: English/Jamaican poet and novelist who has written books of poems and novels for 'kidz' and 'teenz', including Refugee Boy (2001), a moving book about a young refugee from Eritrea/Ethiopia. Jordanhill. Zephaniah's website

J.K. Rowling: the 'Harry Potter' series has taken the children's publishing world by storm and has been credited with turning children back to reading: world sales are colossal; the complete series has now been published: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (1997); Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (1998) (which for me is the weakest of the series); Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (1999) (in which Harry's world gets deeper and darker); the superb Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2000); Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2003); Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2005); and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (2007). One of the interesting things about the Harry Potter series is that it has spawned a lot of secondary, critical reading aimed at children – which is, as far as I know, unprecedented. Spin-offs have now started to appear, such as The Tales of Beedle the Bard (2008). Jordanhill. Harry Potter Website

Sonya Hartnett: Trouble All the Way (1984, when Hartnett was aged 15); Wilful Blue (1994); Sleeping Dogs (1995); The Devil Latch (1996); Stripes of the Sidestep Wolf (1999); Thursday's Child (2000) – her first novel to be published in the UK (2002); she has been described as 'One of Australia's most exciting and controversial new writers for older teenagers. ... Her refusal to consign to adult literature subjects such as incest and psychological violence has been challenged by those craving happy endings for young readers' (Children's Books, p.323). Jordanhill.

Geraldine McCaughrean: a writer of children's books that keep on winning prizes; her first children's novel, A Little Lower than the Angels (1987) won the Whitbread Children's Book of the Year Award; A Pack of Lies (1988) won the Carnegie Medal and the Guardian Award; The Kite Rider (2001) won the Carnegie Medal; Stop the Train (2001) won the Nestlé Book Prize. Jordanhill.

Michael Morpurgo: author of over 90 books for children, many of which challenge the conventions of closure that are common in children's books; Kensuke's Kingdom (1999) is a fascinating 'Robinsonnade', while novels such as Farm Boy (1997) and Out of the Ashes (2001) are about life on farms – the latter about the recent Foot and Mouth crisis. Private Peaceful (2003) is a moving novel about the impact of the First World War on the central character. Jordanhill.

Jacqueline Wilson: a prolific and popular author of novels for children and young adults that mostly focus on 'problem issues' involving young girls in contemporary urban settings; Double Act (1995), for example, which won the Smarties Prize and the Children's Book Award, is about twin girls whose mother has recently died. Jordanhill. Website

Malorie Blackman: her novels and short stories for readers of all age groups often deal with contemporary issues, particularly to do with science or technology – as in Hacker (1992) and Pig-Heart Boy (1997) – and present positive gender and race roles; Noughts and Crosses (2001), which won The Children's Book Award, An Eye for an Eye (2003), and Knife Edge (2004) form an as yet incompleted series of novels set in a dystopian world disfigured by racial separatism. Jordanhill. See Malorie Blackman's Website.

Eva Ibbotson, Journey to the River Sea (2001): the story of an orphan girl's journey up the Amazon river; runner-up for the Whitbread Award and the Guardian Award, but secured the Smarties Gold Award. On order for Main Library.

Melvin Burgess: writer of delightful books for children – such as An Angel for May (1992) (shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal) – and of controversial and explicit books for young adults: Junk (1996) (winner of the Guardian Award and the Carnegie Medal), Lady: My Life as a Bitch (2001), and Doing It (2003) – whose explicit account of the sex lives of modern urban teenagers became controversial when Anne Fine condemned it as 'Filth' in a Guardian review. Jordanhill. Melvin Burgess's Homepage

Paul Magrs: a writer of children's books that are laden with references to popular culture: Strange Boy (2002), a story about a ten year old coming to terms with his unconventional sexuality in the 1970s; Hands Up! (2003). Jordanhill. Homepage

This list is, of course, incomplete and open-ended.

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