Böcker av Karen Sands-O'Connor

This Element examines the early years of British Young Adult (YA) publishing at three strategic publishing houses: Penguin, Heinemann and Macmillan. Specifically, it discusses their YA imprints (Penguin Peacocks, Heinemann New Windmills and Macmillan Topliners), all created at a time when the population of Britain was changing and becoming more diverse. Migration of colonial and former colonial subjects from the Caribbean, India, and Africa contributed to a change in the ethnic makeup of Britain, especially in major urban centres such as London, Birmingham and Manchester. While publishing has typically been seen as slow to respond to societal changes in children's literature, all three of these Young Adult imprints attempted to address and include Black British and British Asian readers and characters in their books; ultimately, however, their focus remained on white readers' concerns.

This book examines a critical period in British children's publishing, from the earliest days of dedicated publishing firms for Black British audiences to the beginnings of the Black Lives Matter movement in the UK.

Traces the representation of West Indian characters in British children's literature from 1700 onwards, challenging traditional notions of British children's literature as mono-cultural by illuminating the contributions of colonial and postcolonial-era Black British writers.

Much literature for children appears in the form of series, in which familiar characters appear in book after book. While much has been written about the early juvenile science fiction series, particularly the Tom Swift books, comparatively little has been written about children's science fiction series published since 1945.