Are you interested in reading or writing children's books?
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For those working in publishing, librarianship, or teaching, or for those working with or interested in children and the books they read, the Master of Arts in Children's Literature provides the opportunity to gain a specialist qualification.
From Norman Lindsay's The Magic Pudding through to Andy Griffith's The Day My Bum Went Psycho, the Master of Arts in Children's Literature at Macquarie University offers a diverse range of texts for students to analyse.
"What we are primarily interested in doing is looking at children's literature in both a historical sense and a genre sense," says course convenor Professor John Stephens. "A current concern, for example, is how notions of a new world order have been infused into children's literature since the cold war. We are interested in cultural issues of this kind as well as in the nature of books themselves, how stories are made and how they are told."
Masters Program
The MA can be gained by completing six coursework units and a minor thesis or by completing eight coursework units. The thesis option enables students to specialise in their area of particular interest, whether it be early childhood books, young adult fiction or picture books.
Candidates can also exit with a Postgraduate Diploma after completing six units.
Units offered in the program include, amongst others:
- Australian Children's Fiction
- Picture Books
- Young Adult Fiction
- Comedy in Children's Texts
- Film and the Folktale Canon.
"We use many books that our students have never heard about," says Stephens. "Many of our students are inclined to say, how did you find this wonderful book?" It is not difficult to use texts that are not widely known as in Australia a few hundred children's books are published each year with the number reaching around 12,000 in North America."
If students opt to undertake a minor thesis as part of the MA in Children's Literature, they are then eligible to go on to undertake a research degree. Accomplished author Ursula Dubosarsky recently finished her PhD at Macquarie. Dubosarsky wrote The Red Shoe as part of her doctorate. This work has gone on to be highly acclaimed and won the 2006 Qld Premier's Literary Award in the Young Adult Book category.
The Day My Bum Went Psycho
One of the interesting books that Stephens is using in the comedy course is entitled The Day My Bum Went Psycho. This has been a best-seller in Australia and around the world.
"If academically we look at this book we have an extraordinarily rich example of the world turned upside down," explains Stephens. "The book does interesting things with Homer's Odyssey and cultural discourses but young boys are reading it because the word bum is written in every possible combination!"
While many of the classics are out of print, sales of The Day My Bum Went Psycho have passed the 100,000 mark. "One of my students (who is a teacher) told me that when the book was at its peak they had to buy a new copy for the library each week," says Stephens. "By buying a new copy they might have been encouraging the boys to steal, but they were also encouraging boys to read! It's amazing what a good book can do."
For further information on the MA in Children's Literature visit www.engl.mq.edu.au/postgrad/ma_childrens_lit.htm or contact Professor John Stephens john.stephens@mq.edu.au