Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: This review paper explores the 2022 collection Storybook Worlds Made Real: Essays on the Places Inspired by Children’s Narratives, edited by Kathy Merlock Jackson and Mark I. West. The 18 chapters of the collection cover a range of theme parks and literary playgrounds related to children’s literature, spanning Europe, America, and, to a lesser extent, Asia. The chapters combine historical and theoretical approaches with detailed descriptions of the parks and engaging first-person travel narratives. Inspired by diverse book characters – from German fairy-tale gnomes through Peter Rabbit and Alice to Pippi Longstocking, Moomins, and ubiquitous Harry Potter – numerous theme parks became a fertile ground for discussing many important topics, including children’s imagination, reading encouragement, authenticity, simulation, commercialisation, Americanisation, Disneyfication, and Pottermania.
Source: Dzieciństwo Literatura i Kultura
DOI: 10.32798/dlk.1337
Author: Olga Bukhina
Language: English
Subfield: Literature and Literary Theory
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4403231043