posted on 04 Aug 2015

Families of prisoners in children’s literature

Children’s literature has a part to play in helping to transmit and shape dominant social attitudes towards imprisonment and this paper explores some modern fictional texts for older children and young adults that include this issue of having a family member in prison (Beast by Ally Kennan; Bog Child by Siobhan Dowd; Raining Fire by Alan Gibbons and Shine by Kate Maryon) and asks whether happy endings like that found in The Railway Children by E. Nesbit, probably the most famous book about the family of a prisoner, are possible in today’s fiction for young people.

A paper written by Karen Argent

August 2015

research_paper_Families_of_prisoners.pdf