Representing The Holocaust In Children's Literature

The author of this article reviews a book by Lydia Kokkola entitled "Representing the Holocaust in Children's Literature." Kokkola is concerned with how literature can affect children's thinking and beliefs about the Holocaust and fascism. She asks how literature can reveal and conceal information about the Holocaust, and how it can be used to teach about the Holocaust. Kokkola's book is a valuable addition to the discussion of the Holocaust in children's literature.

First Published in 2003. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor Francis, an informa company. Review: Kokkola is committed to ethical criticism. She asks repeatedly how literature affects children's thinking and beliefs about the Holocaust and fascism. This is a welcome approach, which is at its best, in my view...when it urges us to think seriously about the profound impact that literature can have on young readers...Kokkola combines theory and criticism of children's literature with Holocaust studies in productive and knowledgeable ways. --The Lion and the Unicorn Lydia Kokkola's study...is keenly narratological, and she often draws on formalist and structuralist approaches as she explicates texts. Like many before her, she is concerned with narratives that simultaneously reveal and conceal as they deal with horrific events, but the kinds of questions she asks focus specifically on how information can be withheld of divulged...Kokkola's approach also brings new dimensions to previous discussions of children's literature and the Holocaust. --Prooftexts: A Journal of Jewish Literary History