function, simultaneously expressing both purposiveness and implicit, often
unexamined, social assumptions.
Finally, attention to the language of children’s fiction has an important implication for
evaluation, adding another dimension to the practices of judging books according to
their entertainment value as stories or to their socio-political correctness. It can be an
important tool in distinguishing between ‘restrictive texts’ which allow little scope for
active reader judgements (Hunt 1991:117) and texts which enable critical and thoughtful
responses.
ReferencesDanziger, P. (1979/1987) Can You Sue Your Parents for Malpractice?, London: Pan.
Fairclough, N. (1989) Language and Power, London and New York: Longman.
Fienberg, A. (1992) Ariel, Zed and the Secret of Life, Sydney: Allen and Unwin.
Fox, P. (1967/1972) How Many Miles to Babylon?, Harmondsworth: Puffin.
Hamilton, V. (1976) Arilla Sun Down, London: Hamish Hamilton.
Hunt, P. (1991) Criticism, Theory, and Children’s Literature, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Hunter, M. (1976) Talent Is Not Enough, New York: Harper and Row.
Kemp, G. (1986/1988) Juniper, Harmondsworth: Puffin.
Leech, G.N. (1983) Principles of Pragmatics, London and New York: Longman
——and Short, M.H. (1981) Style in Fiction, London and New York: Longman.
Mayne, W. (1992) Low Tide, London: Cape.
Russell, D.A. (1988) ‘The common experience of adolescence: a requisite for the development of
young adult literature, Journal of Youth Services in Libraries 2:58–63.
Scholes, R. (1985) Textual Power: Literary Theory and the Teaching of English, New Haven and
London: Yale University Press.
Sendak, M. (1967/1984) Higglety Pigglety Pop! or There Must be More to Life, Harmondsworth:
Puffin.
Stephens, J. (1992a) Language and Ideology in Children’s Fiction, London and New York: Longman.
——(1992b) Reading the Signs: Sense and Significance in Written Texts, Sydney: Kangaroo Press.
Sullivan, C.W. III (1985) ‘J. R.R.Tolkien’s The Hobbit: the magic of words’, in Nodelman, P. (ed.)
Touchstones: Reflections on the Best in Children’s Literature, vol. 1, West Lafayette, IN:
Children’s Literature Association.
Tolkien, J.R.R. (1937/1987) The Hobbit, London: Unwin Hyman.
Further ReadingBillman, C. (1979) ‘Verbal creativity in children’s literature’, English Quarterly 12:25–32.
Hunt, P. (1978) ‘The cliché count: a practical aid for the selection of books for children’, Children’s
Literature in Education 9, 3:143–50.
——(1988) ‘Degrees of control: stylistics and the discourse of children’s literature’, in Coupland, N.
(ed.) Styles of Discourse, London: Croom Helm.
Kuskin, K. (1980) ‘The language of children’s literature’, in Michaels, L. and Ricks, C. (eds) The
State of the Language, Berkeley: University of California Press.
Stephens, J. (1989) ‘Language, discourse, picture books’, Children’s Literature Association
Quarterly 14:106–110.
THEORY AND CRITICAL APPROACHES 67