The varied collection of essays presented in this volume bridges the gap between continental and Anglo-American approaches to children's literature, and discuss the state of the art of what is topical in children's literature studies in Europe and the United States. Varied as the different subject areas under discussion are, considering different subgenres, historical periods, and geographical contexts, two main themes surface in nearly all the essays: ideology and children's literature on the one hand, and images of childhood on the other.