Texts and Childhood Studies
Seminar - UHON 301

Instructor(s): Yoo Kyung Sung, Ph.D.

Course Description

This three-credit course invites participants to experience children’s literature through childhood studies perspectives. In this course, we will examine various ways that childhood has been discussed, researched, portrayed, and understood as a social phenomenon and social institution. Course materials were selected to illustrate how various notions of childhood and “the child” impact cultural understandings regarding the “nature” of children and the meanings of age and the life course. The course makes use of historical materials and transnational perspectives to address contemporary issues and understandings of children and childhood such as changing and diverse definitions of childhood, children as social actors, children’s rights and child labor and work in a global context.

Texts

Picture Books:
  • A New Year’s Reunion by Li-Qiong & Cheng-Liang (Illustrator)
  • What Can You Do With a Paleta? by Carmen Tafolla & Magaly Morales (Illustrator)
  • A Gift for Amma: Market Day in India by Meera Sriram & Mariona Cabassa (Illustrator)
Chapter Books:
(Note: Some titles are presented as pair-book options. Please refer to the course map to see which books are required or optional.)
  • The One Thing You'd Save by Linda Sue Park (2021)
  • Knots in My Yo-Yo String by Jerry Spinelli (1998) – U.S. childhood memoir
  • The Genius Under the Table: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain by Eugene Yelchin (2021) – Soviet-era childhood
  • The Breadwinner by Deborah Ellis (2000)
  • Thirst by Varsha Bajaj (2023)
  • The Bridge Home by Padma Venkatraman (2020)
  • The Night Diary by Veera Hiranandani (2020)
  • Grass by Keum Suk Gendry-Kim – Graphic novel
  • Sold by Patricia McCormick
  • War Brothers by Sharon E. McKay
  • Blended by Sharon Draper
  • Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds
  • Iqbal by Francesco D’Adamo
  • Lizzie and the Lost Baby by Cheryl Blackford (2015)
  • A Thousand Questions by Saadia Faruqi (2022)
And Professional Readings.

About the Instructor(s): Yoo Kyung Sung, Ph.D.

Yoo Kyung Sung is a Professor in the Department of Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies at the College of Education and Human Sciences, University of New Mexico. She teaches a variety of undergraduate and graduate courses in children's literature. Her research centers on critical content analysis of global and international children's literature, with a particular focus on the representation of global immigrants and diasporas.