Kinder-und Jugendliteratur und Narratologie (review)

This volume is proof that children’s and young adult literature is a worthy object of sophisticated narratological enquiries. It features an introduction, two author-interviews, and twelve contributions, which analyze and discuss different narrative forms in picture books, books for children, and young adult literature. Instead of studying the content, the essays explore the forms and structures – in other words, the literariness – of the genre. They examine the by now classic narratological categories developed by Gérard Genette, such as the treatment of time, the mood (i.e. distance and perspective of the narrator), or the (narrative) voice. Most individual contributions focus on quite specific issues. One, for example, traces the staging of memory or the change in voice from free indirect speech to interior monologue in the work of Mirjam Pressler. Other essays offer surveys, one of them detailing, for instance, the “narratological elements” in popular cardboard picture books. The overall very thorough contributions clearly illustrate the diverse ways in which books for children and young adults construct their narratives. Moreover, they convincingly demonstrate how much can be gained from approaching children’s literature with analytical tools that have long proved their worth with “grown-up’s” literature.