A Wonder-Book for Girls & Boys: Children's Corner Critical Edition

 

The latest book in our Children's Corner Critical Edition series - as ever, co-produced with our final year students - is available for pre-order now. This timely edition of Nathaniel Hawthorne's groundbreaking book of Greek myth for children (first published in 1851) should delight a new generation of rewaders, young and old, and has already garnered some wonderful words of praise:

"This splendid edition will allow new readers of all ages to enjoy Hawthorne’s high-spirited, inventive retellings of ancient myths. The Introduction helpfully relates the collection both to Hawthorne’s own life and times and to today’s remarkable upsurge of interest in classical mythology." - Professor Sheila Murnaghan, editor of Childhood and the Classics: Britain and America, 1850-1965 (Oxford University Press 2018).
 
"This is an excellent edition of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s A Wonder Book for Boys and Girls that will appeal to children and adults alike. The editors do an excellent job in their thorough introduction and the educational resources for teachers, including prompts, questions, exercises, and projects, are quite impressive. All in all, this is a delightful companion to Hawthorne studies and to children’s studies." - Professor Monika Elbert, Editor, Nathaniel Hawthorne Review.
"Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys is truly a wonder. For over 170 years, it has been introducing children to the realm of myths. Hawthorne not only recounts mythological tales, but also – and above all – teaches empathy and respect for the world. His Wonder-Book is a classic that adults may also want to return to. This new edition provides a wonderful opportunity to embark on such a journey, beyond time and space – into the essence of our humanity. A set of educational resources prepared by the editors provides the readers with materials for in-depth reflections, while the appendix with some extracts from other texts engaged with mythology before and after Hawthorne offers an interesting context. What is particularly valuable about this edition is also the participation of students, who were able to develop their research skills while working on the comprehensive introduction and contribute to giving new life to the Wonder-Book.” - Professor Katarzyna Marciniak, editor of Our Mythical Childhood... The Classics and Literature for Children and Young Adults (Brill, 2016). 
Order now!

Literary Encyclopedia Book Prize 2024: Winner

 

Delighted to announced that our edition of Lydia Maria Child's writing for children, co-produced with our students, was awarded The Literary Encyclopaedia's biennial prize for Scholarly Editions.

The full announcement can be found on The Literary Encyclopaedia's pages here and below.

Transforming Educations Awards: Winner

 

Back in May our ongoing children's literature project (see more here, here and here) won a UEA Transforming Education Award for Employability and Experiential Learning. All of the books published so far through this project are now part of their own UEA Publishing Project imprint, Children's Corner Editions, and are available here.

A Juvenile Miscellany: An Anthology of Lydia Maria Child's Writing for Children

Coming in November! Edited with my colleague Hilary Emmett, this is the latest collaboration between us, the UEA Publishing Project and the brilliant final-year students on our children's literature module at UEA (see also What Katy Did and Five Little Peppers). The official website is here and it's available for pre-order now. This is the first ever collection of Child's deeply influential writing for children, and I'm delighted to say that it has already received some very kind words of praise from some of the most significant Child scholars around:

"This splendid anthology of Lydia Maria Child’s writings for juveniles is a major publishing event that represents American Studies at its best. The product of an inspiring collaboration between the scholarly editors and their students in the field, the book reprints for the first time a wide range of texts covering all the subjects about which Child sought to educate her youthful readers—relations between indigenous peoples and white settlers; race, enslavement, and abolition; history and revolution; the natural world; and work, wealth, and poverty. The anthology’s superb introduction not only highlights Child‘s role in creating an American children’s literature and influencing later practitioners of the genre but offers insightful interpretations of key texts. Altogether a remarkable achievement."
Carolyn L. Karcher, author The First Woman in the Republic: A Cultural Biography of Lydia Maria Child

"A Juvenile Miscellany, a beautifully edited collection of Lydia Maria Child's children's literature, is a joy to read. The selected stories are lively and evocative; together, they provide irrefutable evidence of Child's genius as a pioneering American children's author. The editors' introduction contextualizes the stories in Child's wider career as a radical abolitionist and reformer, confirming her status as a major nineteenth-century intellectual with much still to teach us today. "
Lydia Moland, author of Lydia Maria Child: A Radical American Life

"A Juvenile Miscellany: An Anthology of Lydia Maria Child’s Writing for Children is a milestone in the author’s recovery. Offering an abundant selection of the author’s work on various social justice causes, as well as key texts on the natural world, this generous collection represents Child brilliantly as an activist and a citizen. It is exactly the book I have been wanting."
Karen Kilcup, Elizabeth Rosenthal Excellence Professor at UNC Greensboro and author of Stronger, Truer, Bolder: American Children's Writing, Nature, and the Environment

And we were interviewed for the Lydia Maria Child Newsletter - some screenshots here!

Full description below!

Five Little Peppers: Launch Event

This Wednesday we officially launched Five Little Peppers at the wonderful Norwich bookshop Bookbugs and Dragon Tales. It was great to introduce the book the staff and pupils from Queen's Hill Primary. Get your own copy here.

Five Little Peppers

 

I'm thrilled that the second book produced in collaboration my co-editor Hilary Emmett, our students, and the UEA Publishing Project, will be published in November. This time, we're breathing new life into Margaret Sidney's Gilded Age bestseller, Five Little Peppers and How They Grew (1882)! As with last year's edition of What Katy Did, students enrolled on our final year children's literature module co-wrote the introduction and were involved in all aspects of the design. Bonus content: this edition also includes two early short stories by Sidney featuring the Pepper children, including the original version of the hard-to-find "Polly Pepper's Chicken Pie", first published in Wide Awake magazine in 1877! 

Order your copy direct from the UEA Publishing Project here.

What Katy Did: Book Launch

Over the past year I've been working on a very special book project: along with my colleague Hilary Emmett, students from our final year module on nineteenth century children's literature, designer Emily Benton, and UEA's Boiler House Press we've been busy producing a new edition of Susan Coolidge's beloved book for children, What Katy Did. 2022 is its 150th anniversary, so this is timely on a number of levels! Working collaboratively on this new critical edition - the first of its kind - has been a wonderful experience and I'm looking forward to talking more about the genesis and development of the project at our book launch on November 30th at 5pm. You can register for the event, for free, here. And you pre-order your copy here (or here on amazon).