Academic literature on the topic 'Newspapers – Juvenile fiction'

AbstractDuring the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, thousands of middle-class youths published their own amateur newspapers. These periodicals were printed using the so-called toy (or “novelty”) press, a portable tabletop device that helped democratize word processing. Children often used their presses to compose miniature novels and short stories. They then shared their prose with a national community of fellow juvenile writers collectively known as “Amateurdom.” Adolescent fiction explored an array of subjects, but the frontier, territorial expansion, and empire in the West became some of its particular fixations. All that imperial storytelling, however, possessed a rich subtext. Boys and girls, reacting to late-nineteenth-century changes in the lived experience of childhood, used their printing presses to challenge various constraints imposed upon them. But in so doing, they both perpetuated and reinforced a pernicious culture of settler colonialism that celebrated the subjugation of American Indians. Ultimately, the amateur publications of children remind us that fiction is not exclusively an adult enterprise. The creative output of young people provides important insight into an underexplored realm of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era’s literary world.

Twice Pulitzer Prize winner Colson Whitehead bases the plot of his novels on various facts of American reality found in documents and newspaper publications. By juxtaposing fact and fiction, he transforms them to create a new reality, rooted in the events of real life but acquiring a universal or metaphorical character that could be seen even in his early works. In “John Henry Days” (2001) the writer makes use of the legend of the famous black laborer John Henry, its reflection in the folklore and everyday life of the American South and attempts to up-sell it in today’s USA with the help of social networks. In the novel “The Underground Railroad”, written after Whitehead’s archival research and his study of slave narratives of the mid-19th century, the document is woven into the artistic structure of the text by using authentic announcements about runaway slaves. The novel “The Nickel Boys” was written under the influence of the information about the horrible findings discovered on the grounds of the so-called Arthur Dozier School, established in early 20th century for juvenile delinquents, telling the story of two black boys who got there in the 1960s. The writer incessantly explores the impact of racism on American society and social injustice making use of a historical novel elements, of alternative history, neo-slave narratives and satire in his descriptions of the contemporary US media.

Jarrow, Gail. Bubonic Panic: When Plague Invaded America. Calkins Creek, 2015.If public health seems like it would be one of those topics that would send you to sleep, then Bubonic Plague: When Plague Invaded America by Gail Jarrow will change your mind. This is the final book in her trilogy about Deadly Diseases for middle grades and higher.Jarrow is fairly succinct in presenting the history, transmission, and trajectory of various waves of plague around the world. She briefly charts its first appearance in 541 in Turkey, then vividly describes the second wave that started in 1346 and at its most virulent was named the Black Death, killing millions in Europe and parts of Asia and North Africa. The majority of the book focuses on the third wave, when it reached North America.The third pandemic began in the mid-1800s when China became ground zero for this next wave, which spread to Hong Kong by 1894. Hong Kong was a busy port town and trade and travel on steamships allowed for rapid dispersion of the disease. Researchers from a number of countries sought feverishly to identify the source of the epidemic and learn how it was spread. By the late 1890s two of them had proven it was rat fleas. Unfortunately almost nobody believed them, which became problematic when in 1900 San Francisco saw its first deaths in Chinatown.Jarrow provides a fascinating look at the political and social climate of this period in relation to the attitudes of Americans towards Chinese immigrants and the impact quarantining San Francisco’s Chinatown would have on businesses reliant on trade and tourism. It became a complicated and fraught tug-o-war between politicians, businessmen, doctors and public health officials, fighting about whether to recognize and publicize the deaths and quarantine when the evidence seemed inconclusive as to their cause. Even after proof was offered action was surprisingly slow to follow and the disease was able to spread, although the number of deaths was comparatively low, being in the low hundreds.This well researched book also includes information about contemporary cases in the United States, ongoing research and treatments for all three strains of plague. There are extensive source notes and bibliography, a glossary, timeline, index and an author’s note explaining her keen interest in public health and the importance it had in the past,and will have when the next global pandemic hits. Also included are numerous photographs (some a little gruesome), newspaper clippings, cartoons, posters and illustrations to engage readers’ interest.This will pair perfectly with a middle grade novel, Chasing Secrets by Gennifer Choldenko, 2015 that gives a fictional account of the outbreak in San Francisco.This is a strong finish to a fascinating series that combines history, social issues, scientific research, technological developments and culture in America, showing long term implications for today’s government policies towards health.Highly Recommended: 4 out of 4 starsReviewer: Tammy FlandersTammy is the Reference Coordinator in the Doucette Library of Teaching Resources at the University of Calgary. She also reviews juvenile resources with an eye to classroom use in her blog, Apples with Many Seeds.

There was no singular type of Sunday paper. A multiplicity of Sunday supplements produced new kinds of readers through their very form and design. Each asked readers to do more than read, but to interact with the materiality of the paper as a form of leisure. Sunday supplements established a different temporality from the weekday newspaper and the bustle of the workweek. They entreated readers to spend time with the paper, tying them to the rhythms of the weekend and the home. This temporality linked one Sunday to another, making a subscription all the more logical by providing a cultural aesthetic for the home. Most varieties of supplements appealed to women readers, who were considered especially important for securing home delivery. Lithographed art and photographic supplements, sheet music, novels and fiction magazines, fashion plates, and sewing patterns: all offered a distinctly feminine appeal. Games, puzzles, coloring books and all variety of paper toys appealed to children. Women readers found aesthetic appreciation; juvenile readers delighted in aesthetic play. Even in later days of early radio, Sunday papers were conduits of popular education explicitly including all members of the family as reading subjects, each invested in subscribing to the paper.