Ireland

As joint editors of the quarterly Irish children's literature magazine, Inis, Valerie Coghlan and Siobhán Parkinson commissioned a number of essays between 2001 and 2004 about some of the most successful Irish children's book authors and illustrators. For the present publication, these thirteen articles, written by renowned children's literature experts, editors and fellow authors and illustrators, have now been updated. They introduce and discuss the works of ten popular Irish authors, including Eoin Colfer, Matthew Sweeney and Gerard Whelan, and the three Irish illustrators Marie-Louise Fitzpatrick, Niamh Sharkey, and PJ Lynch. In his article on young artist Niamh Sharkey, for example, John Short traces the development of her style with many full-colour pictures showing examples of her stunning artwork; Celia Keenan reflects on the importance of place in Maeve Friel's novels and on her 'complex and ambiguous' attitude to the past. Even though the articles focus primarily on children's literature published in English (and often outside of Ireland), as the editors concede in the introduction to the book, this collection of essays still offers a broad critical overview of the contemporary Irish children's literature scene at the turn of the 21st century. Thus it constitutes a unique resource for both scholars of children's literature and the general reading public.