BGU Senior Lecturer publishes book on children’s literature

Dr Amy Webster, Senior Lecturer in Education Studies at BGU, has recently published a book on the topic of children’s literature.

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At BGU, Amy teaches on both our MA Children’s Literature and Literacies and MA English Literature postgraduate courses. Alongside this, she is also a core member of the university’s Research & Knowledge Exchange Unit: Literature and Literacies.

In her book, Amy explores a new way of reading the children’s classics, which considers the involvement of publishers and the impact of serialisation.

Entitled ‘Serialization, Commercialization and the Children’s Classics: British Series from the 20th Century’, the book is part of Bloomsbury’s Perspectives on Children’s Literature series. This publishes innovative monographs by leading and rising scholars in the field of children’s literature, with an emphasis on cross and inter-disciplinary studies.

Amy uses a novel, mixed methods approach to analyse the titles in series over the past century, as well as the abridgement and repackaging of classic texts for series.

Her analysis reveals how closely the children’s classics are intertwined with commercialism and leads the call for a critical approach towards both the term 'classic' and to reading children's classics.

Amy commented: “I am thrilled to finally be able to share my recent book publication!

“I would like to say a heartfelt thank you to everyone that has supported me throughout the process, including my colleagues at BGU.

“My hope for the book is that it becomes a valuable resource for those with an academic interest in children’s literature and sparks important conversations about the use of the term ‘classic’.”

Members of staff, students and the BGU community are warmly invited to a book launch event to celebrate the recent publication.

The event is scheduled to take place on Wednesday 2^nd April from 4pm – 4:45pm in Seminar Room 2 in the Robert Hardy Building on campus!

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