Connecting Childhood and Old Age in Popular Media

Vanessa Joosen is professor of English literature and children's literature at the University of Antwerp. She is author of Critical and Creative Perspectives on Fairy Tales, which was named a Choice Outstanding Academic Title, and coeditor of Grimm's Tales around the Globe: The Dynamics of Their International Reception, which received the Children's Literature Association Honor Award for Edited Book.

[The] collection provides insightful intersectional readings about childhood and old age, and the broad scope guarantees that all readers can find something that interests them.--Brianna Anderson "Children's Literature" As a whole, the collection has much to offer, not only in terms of its development of our understanding of the connections between childhood and old age, but also in terms of developing our understanding of how thematic similarities play out in different media.--Lydia Kokkola "International Research Society for Children's Literature" Historically and geographically wide-ranging, these groundbreaking essays astutely explore the global assumption that children and old people share similar deficiencies. The collection is a timely intervention into discussions of intergenerational relationships and ageism that will be of great interest to scholars and others engaged in cultural studies, children's literature and age studies.--John Stephens, editor of The Routledge Companion to International Children's Literature and Subjectivity in Asian Children's Literature and Film: Global Theories and Implications This engaging volume challenges the stereotypes often associated with the elderly and with notions of childhood. The articles are a wonderful collection from international scholars from Eastern nations--Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan--as well as from the West--Holland, the United States, Belgium, and France. It features intercultural perspectives--fairy tales/folktales, children's books, television, film, and advertising; and contemporary popular culture (television series such as The Simpsons and Mad Men, which are familiar to English-speaking audiences); as well as classical texts, like Johanna Spyri's Heidi and Japanese fairy tales--demonstrating a wide scope. This gathering looks at intergenerational bonding, the way different cultures treat aging; rather than presenting old age as fixed and unchanging, it features the complexity of each stage of life. And the writing is inviting, scholarly, and readerly.--Roni Natov, professor of English at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York and author of The Poetics of Childhood