Alternating Narratives in Fiction for Young Readers

Download or read book Alternating Narratives in Fiction for Young Readers written by Perry Nodelman and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-04-17 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is about the implications of novels for young readers that tell their stories by alternating between different narrative lines focused on different characters. It asks: if you make sense of fiction by identifying with one main character, how do you handle two or more of them? Do novels with alternating narratives diverge from longstanding conventions and represent a significant change in literature for young readers? If not, how do these novels manage to operate within the parameters of those conventions? This book considers answers to these questions by means of a series of close readings that explore the structural, educational and ideological implications of a variety of American, British, Canadian and Australian novels for children and for young adults.