English 4950: Literature for Children, a course intended primarily for undergraduate education and English majors, focuses on reading and interpreting texts written for children, defined here as individuals aged five to fourteen.

Many may consider the subject matter for this course "easy" or "simple," but those who write children's books and those cultural critics who study the phenomenon of childhood recognize the complexity of these cultural artifacts. Part of what makes our subject so complex is the fact that every decision we make about what children will or will not read, should or should not read, can or cannot read — all of these decisions reflect more about what adults believe about childhood that what any research or relatively objective experience would conclude regarding children.

Students in this class — a mixed group of pre-service teachers and textual scholars — can expect to engage the picture books and chapter books with a careful, critical eye toward what these books tell us about childhood, about our current cultural moment regarding childhood, and about what these ideas do when books, teachers, children, and curricula intersect.