Islands in fiction for young people: A brief introduction

Ben Screech

Islands in fiction for young people: A brief introduction

Ben Screech La Trobe University

Abstract

Islands have been a setting for a great deal of children’s literature, both historically and in present times. A number of the classic works of the genre have been tantalisingly set on island shores, and are often depicted as liminal sites. They are “fertile spaces for the exploration of the shifting sands of identity”. Such a preoccupation with ‘identity’ is a consistent concern for many of the writers introduced throughout this article, and I suggest that the islands explored could even be viewed as a metaphor for childhood and adolescence itself. Indeed, these are periods in life in which we often feeling unanchored and adrift en-route to being swept away by the ‘rising tide’ of adult experience.

Author Biography

Ben Screech, La Trobe University

David Beagley is Lecturer in Children's Literature and Literacy at La Trobe University's Bendigo campus, Victoria, Australia, where he teaches units in Genres, History, Australian and Post-colonial children's literature, and in Fiction for Young Adults. He has previously taught English, Literature, History and Drama in secondary schools, and has been a school and university librarian. He is interested in the history of traditional "boys' adventure" stories, especially those involving aircraft.

Published

2018-11-08

Issue

Vol. 21 No. 1 (2018)

Section

Jabberwocky

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