Human Rights in Children's Literature

Rebekah Fitzsimmons, The Lion and the Unicorn The authors analyze and discuss children's books that exemplify the rights and ideas covered within that area of international law, as well as reader responses from children engaged with those same fictional texts. The result is a book that is complex, informative, and multifaceted... The selected results of this qualitative study help bolster the authors' claims that children's literature can and does affect the perception of human rights among young readers while
supporting the idea that the study of children's literature is valid and important in this context.


Risa Kaufman, Columbia Law School Human Rights Institute (Human Rights at Home Blog) For those working to bring human rights home, the book offers important and unique insights on the role that childrens literature can play in shaping a culture of human rights, near and far.


Association for Childhood Education International The authors have embarked upon a unique and thought-provoking exploration of childrens literature through which readers gain new insights into how stories influence childrens awareness of their rights. This groundbreaking inquiry is a must read for all those interested in learning how literature serves as a vehicle for human rights education.


Jonathan Todres and Sarah Higinbotham reveal in this remarkable and long overdue book [that] the content of children's literature is crucial. It matters for the children concerned and, by extension, for the very nature of the societies in which they grow up. It helps children to understand that they have rights, and that these rights are important. Children's literature has a pivotal role to play in forging that early sense of self-worth, and Jonathan and Sarah are
to be congratulated for shining a new light on a role that has, until now, been under-appreciated".
(From the Foreword)
-Carol Bellamy, Former Executive Director of UNICEF


Human Rights in Children's Literature is an important book for educators and anyone who believes that society is better off when everyone knows their rights and then adults are expected to talk about and teach rights to the next generation. This original inquiry combines children's rights, human rights, and literary theory with the larger purpose of finding better ways to teach human- and children's- rights in a timely manner to young people. The authors are
interested in advancing children's rights by striving to enforce an under-appreciated principle in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child - a requirement that people (children and adults alike) be informed of their rights. Instead of focusing on what rights children have or ought to have,
this books asks us to consider why it is important to teach young people what are their rights. This could transform society, leading to citizens expecting and demanding that their rights be honored." -Martin Guggenheim, NYU Law


The relationship between hu...

Jonathan Todres is a Professor of Law at Georgia State University College of Law. His research focuses on children's rights and child well-being. Professor Todres has published more than fifty articles on children's rights, child trafficking and related forms of exploitation, legal and cultural constructs of childhood, and human rights in children's literature. He is a fellow of the American Bar Foundation. Sarah Higinbotham is a Marion L. Brittain Postdoctoral Fellow at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Her scholarship centers on the intersections of literature and law. She has written about the violence of the law in early modern England, critical prison theory, and human rights in children's literature. She teaches at a men's prison outside Atlanta and works actively with an Atlanta nonprofit that benefits children who have an incarcerated parent.

Foreword by Carol Bellamy, Former Executive Director of UNICEF Preface by Jonathan Todres Acknowledgments Chapter 1: Making Children's Rights Widely Known Chapter 2: Participation Rights and the Voice of the Child Chapter 3: Confronting Discrimination, Pursuing Equality Chapter 4: Identity Rights and Family Rights Chapter 5: Civil and Political Rights of Children: Accountability with Dignity Chapter 6: Securing Child Well-being: The Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights of the Child Chapter 7: Adults in the World of Children's Literature Chapter 8: Reading, Rights, and the Best Interests of the Child Appendix 1: United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child Appendix 2: Discrimination against Children Appendix 3: Cinderella around the World Appendix 4: Empirical Study: How Children Interpret Human Rights in Stories Children's Literature Bibliography Bibliography For more information Index