By Herbert Kohl

In "provocative and entertaining essays [that] will appeal to reflective readers, parents, and educators" (Library Journal), Herbert Kohl, one of the country's foremost education writers, challengers some of the chestnuts of children's literature. Highlighting instances of racism, sexism, and condescension that detract from the tales being told, Kohl provides strategies for detecting bias in stories written for young people and suggests ways that we might teach kids to think critically about what they read.

By Laura Miller

Enchanted by the fantastic world of the Chronicles of Narnia as a child, Laura Miller returns to C.S. Lewis's classic fantasies to see what mysteries Narnia still holds for adult eyes - and she is captivated in an entirely new way. She travels to Lewis's childhood home in Ireland, unfolds his intense friendship with J.R.R. Tolkien, and explores Lewis's influence on contemporary writers such as Neil Gaiman, Jonathan Franzen, and Philip Pullman. Finally reclaiming Narnia for the rest of us, Miller casts the Chronicles as a profoundly literary creation, and the portal to a lifelong adventure in books, art, and the imagination.

By Jack Zipes

Jack Zipes - translator of the Grimm tales, teacher, storyteller, and scholar - has never flinched from the hard questions about kids and books. In Sticks and Stone he raises the stakes for everyone who cares about children's literature and culture. From the grisly nineteenth-century moralism of Slovenly Peter (whose fingers get cut off) to the wildly successful Harry Potter books, children's literature is in many ways the "grown-ups version" - a story about childhood that adults tell to kids. And that, argues Jack Zipes, can be a problem: even the experts don't really know what children make of what we give them. Sticks and Stones is a forthright and engaging book by someone who cares deeply about what and how children read.

By Maria Tatar

Tatar leads readers on a fascinating and timely exploration of how books cast powerful spells on young readers. For them, words create other worlds: they lead the way through the wardrobe to the snow-covered slopes of Narnia; open the gate to E.B. White's barnyard, where pigs and spiders talk; and direct us to Platform Nine and Three-Quarters, from which the train departs for Hogwarts. In the tradition of Bruno Bettelheim's landmark Uses of Enchantment, this book is a compelling return to the complex world of childhood and its literature. In reading it, we will recall our own adventures as enchanted hunters, always searching for that next doorway or rabbit hole into the realm of possibility.