Books Received

The Américas Award: Honoring Latino/a Children’s and Young Adult Literature of the Americas. Edited by Laretta Henderson. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2016.

The contributors to this collection focus on the history and significance of the Américas Award, established in 1993 by the Consortium of Latin American Studies Programs, within the broader context of Latin American children’s literature.

Pete Hautman: Speaking the Truth to Teens. By Joel Shoemaker. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016.

Part of the Young Adult Literature series edited by Patty Campbell, this volume provides an overview of Pete Hautman’s young adult fiction. Joel Shoemaker begins the book with a biographical sketch of the author. He then turns his attention to Hautman’s novels, including Godless, Eden West, How to Steal a Car, and What Boys Really Want.

Revisiting Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood: Essays on Lessons About Self and Community. Edited by Kathy Merlock Jackson and Steven M. Emmanuel. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2016.

This collection of eleven original essays examines the reasons why Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood has had such a lasting impact on children’s culture in America. The contributors address Fred Rogers’s role in the history of children’s television, paying particular attention to the ethics and cultural values that he promoted through his program.

Under the Bed, Creeping: Psychoanalyzing the Gothic in Children’s Literature. By Michael Howarth. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2014.

Drawing primarily on the theories of Erik Erikson, Michael Howarth takes a psychoanalytic approach to interpreting the gothic elements in several works for children. Among the texts that he examines are Christina Rossetti’s “Goblin Market,” Carlo Collodi’s Pinocchio, J. M. Barrie’s Peter and Wendy, and Neil Gaiman’s Coraline.