This collection of original essays concentrates on the meaning of cultural aesthetics in children's and adolescent literature and uniquely tackles the particular issues teachers face today.

Examining their earlier knowledge and suppositions of identity in children's and adolescent literature and exploring what it means to read and interpret culturally diverse literature in appropriate ways, this carefully edited compilation of essays offers compelling pieces by the top children's and adolescent scholars: Junko Yokota, Barbara Lehman, Jill P. May, Richard Van Dongen, Zhihui Fang, Violet Harris, Larry Sipe, and Darwin Henderson, among others. Fascinating, thought-provoking, and groundbreaking, Exploring Culturally Diverse Literature for Children and Adolescents is destined to become a classic.

This text is divided into sections that discuss beginning literary patterns of a particular group, stereotypic representations of American cultures, imagery in American adolescent and children's literature, and issues of literary inclusion. Theory and practice come together throughout the three sections of the text.