Human Rights in Children's Literature: Imagination and the Narrative of Law

"Jonathan Todres and Sarah Higinbotham reveal in this remarkable and long overdue book [that] the content of children's literature is crucial. It matters for the children concerned and, by extension, for the very nature of the societies in which they grow up. It helps children to understand that they have rights, and that these rights are important. Children's literature has a pivotal role to play in forging that early sense of self-worth, and Jonathan and Sarah are to be congratulated for shining a new light on a role that has, until now, been under-appreciated". 
(From the Foreword) 
-Carol Bellamy, Former Executive Director of UNICEF

"Human Rights in Children's Literature is an important book for educators and anyone who believes that society is better off when everyone knows their rights and then adults are expected to talk about and teach rights to the next generation. This original inquiry combines children's rights, human rights, and literary theory with the larger purpose of finding better ways to teach human- and children's- rights in a timely manner to young people. The authors are interested in advancing children's rights by striving to enforce an under-appreciated principle in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child - a requirement that people (children and adults alike) be informed of their rights. Instead of focusing on what rights children have or ought to have, this books asks us to consider why it is important to teach young people what are their rights. This could transform society, leading to citizens expecting and demanding that their rights be honored." -Martin Guggenheim, NYU Law

"The relationship between human rights and children's literature is of the utmost importance to all those with an interest in either. Human Rights in Children's Literature is the first book to comprehensively reflect on the influence and interpenetration of the discourse of rights and the experience of literature in the moral development of children. The authors reveal a powerful sensitivity to the deep emotional undertow that the books we read in childhood instil in us and exert over us all of our lives. At the same time they demonstrate a sophisticated understanding not only of the theoretical and legal framework of human rights, but of the actual experiences of vulnerable children around the world. Those children, and our own, deserve no less." -Professor Desmond Manderson, Australian National University

"In this wonderful and wonder-filled book, two gifted scholars take the abstract concept of rights for children and bring it to life through the books children love. It is much more than a scholarly study. It is a roadmap for action. Not your grandmother's two dimensional paper roadmap, but a 21st century navigator speaking in voices that are funny, frightened, angry, sad, brave, and joyful to guide us on the path to implementation of children's rights as human rights." -Barbara Bennett Woodhouse, L. Q. C. Lamar Professor of Law, Director Child Rights Project, Emory University School of Law