Fantasy and the Real World in British Children's Literature

Taylor & Francis

This study examines the children\u2019s books of three extraordinary British writers\u2014J.K. Rowling, Diana Wynne Jones, and Terry Pratchett\u2014and investigates their sophisticated use of narrative strategies not only to engage children in reading, but to educate them into becoming mature readers and indeed individuals. The book demonstrates how in quite different ways these writers establish reader expectations by drawing on conventions in existing genres only to subvert those expectations. Their strategies lead young readers to evaluate for themselves both the power of story to shape our understanding of the world and to develop a sense of identity and agency. Rowling, Jones, and Pratchett provide their readers with fantasies that are pleasurable and imaginative, but far from encouraging escape from reality, they convey important lessons about the complexities and challenges of the real world\u2014and how these may be faced and solved. All three writers deploy the tropes and im.