"In Kiddie Lit, Beverly Lyon Clark explores the marginalization of children's literature in America - and its recent possible reintegration - both within the academy and by the mainstream critical establishment. Tracing the reception of works by Mark Twain, Louisa May Alcott, Lewis Carroll, Frances Hodgson Burnett, L. Frank Baum, Walt Disney, and J.K. Rowling, Clark reveals fundamental shifts in the assessment of the literary worth of books beloved by both children and adults, whether written for boys, girls, or both.

While uncovering the institutional underpinnings of this transition, Clark also attributes it to changing American attitudes toward childhood itself, a cultural resistance to the intrinsic value of childhood expressed through sentimentality, condescension, and moralizing." "Clark's study of the critical disregard for children's books since the end of the nineteenth century - which draws on recent scholarship in gender, cultural, and literary studies - offers provocative new insights into the history of both children's literature and American literature in general, and forcefully argues that the books our children read and love demand greater respect."--Jacket.