Open AccessOzzie Kids Flee the Garden of Delight: Reconfigurations of Childhood in Australian Children’s Fictions
Author(s) -
Beverley Pennell
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
papers (victoria park)/papers
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1837-4530
pISSN - 1034-9243
DOI - 10.21153/pecl2003vol13no2art1287
Subject(s) - trilogy , democratization , diversity (politics) , early childhood , gender studies , power (physics) , sociology , psychology , developmental psychology , history , art , literature , anthropology , political science , politics , law , democracy , physics , quantum mechanics
Popular texts such as Joanne Horniman's 'Sand Monkeys' and Odo Hirsch's trilogy of 'Hazel Green' books are used to study the way childhood is conceptualised in contemporary Australian fiction for children, thus arguing that cultural discourses around children and childhood have shifted from an emphasis on adulthood and childhood as distinct and separate domains of experience. The shift is viewed as incorporating an increasing democratisation of power relations between adults and children, and an appreciation of the diversity of child populations.