Jane Newland explores how Deleuzian concepts can enhance and invigorate our readings of this literature, whose implied readership masks much paradox. She focuses on children’s texts by some of the authors who fascinate Deleuze, including Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, Lewis Carroll, André Dhôtel, Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio and Michel Tournier, as well as Deleuze’s own children’s book, L'oiseau philosophie (The Philosophy Bird). The authors are explored across chapters on central Deleuzian concepts: pure repetition, becoming, cartographies, stuttering and nonsense.

Newland follows Deleuze down the rabbit hole of children’s literature, exploring the bizarre repetitions of Eugene Ionesco; the ritournelles of Pierrette Fleutiaux; the becoming-animal and becoming-molecular of Virginia Woolf; the becoming-plant of J. M. Gustave Le Clézio; a world out of time in Michel Tournier; and language from stutter, to howl, to (non)sense, to the zeroth voice in Lewis Carroll and James Joyce. Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty. -- P. D. Hopkins * CHOICE *
Newland has a gift for making Deleuzian concepts accessible and efficacious. She demonstrates how and why Deleuzian theory should guide literary critics through the paradoxes inherent in the adult/child relationship that informs children’s literature. Deleuze in Children’s Literature is smart, innovative, and elegant. It will become a scholarly imperative for opening a new door to children’s literature. * Roberta Seelinger Trites, Distinguished Professor of English, Illinois State University *

Jane Newland is Associate Professor of French at Wilfred Laurier University, Canada.