This book is packed full of research reviews, and some may want to take the time to read through these along with other current research and then formulate their own ideas regarding literacy and Deafness.

However, for the person seeking straight-forward information and easy-to-understand practical suggestions, this is NOT the book!

A key researcher in his field, one does not doubt the author's expertise. Perhaps future versions will prove more user-friendly.

This book uses very difficult language. It is not easy reading. I found that the author use of language was hard to understand.

This book is a compilation of the current research regarding deafness and literacy. This book is geared toward researchers and educators. It is very extensive in nature and contains information necessary to properly educate Deaf children for improved literacy outcomes. Previous reviews of this book have been harsh, I do not know what the purpose of this information was for other reviewers, but all educators of the Deaf should read and know this information. We have (as educators) have been using outdated "user-friendly" and "easy to understand" information regarding deaf-education. It's time to start challenging ourselves and our students.
I would recommend this book for all educators and interpreters of Deaf children.

I'm glad not to be alone in seeing the Harry Potter books as only an empty marketing success and Zipes is acute when he comments on the banality of "Americanized" culture continued today by media giants like Disney. But Zipes is guilty of the same mamby pamby moralism that he criticizes in others, if you've read his Oxford Book of Fairy Tales you'll find that it's an unimaginative collection of innocuous speech codes and flaky feminist paranoia which is tedious and boring. Much of the "homogeneity" he complains about in popular culture comes from the dictates of "least objectionable programming" which advertisers like and is not unlike the political correctness found in elite Western institutions, where Zipes hails from obviously. J.K. Rowlings caricatures are embarrassingly "diverse" as if from a from a sensitivity training pogram which good leftists like Zipes should respect after all. Zipes reiterates all the liberal platitudes which have become suburban marketing clichés. Although he doesn't exactly advocate body piercing or tattoos. Not yet anyway. In short it's difficult to see where Zipes complaints lie since corporate progressives are pretty much dictating his own taste.

In this collection of essays based on speeches and lectures, the author - an admirer of Adorno - poses questions that should concern parents and teachers everywhere: Who decides what is "appropriate" literature for children? How are children introduced to this literature, and what do they make of it?

The first four chapters of the book, peppered with the somewhat off-putting jargon of literary theory, deplore the vertical integration of publishing empires, the marketing of books in association with toys, games, gadgets, T-shirts, etc., which results in "cultural homogenization" of the children. Adults decide "what's good for children" and use literature, among other tools, to manipulate and control them.

In chapters 5-9, the discussion gains momentum by using concrete examples of literature written for children. Changing attitudes toward Grimms' Fairy Tales and the "Struwwelpeter" stories of Heinrich Hoffmann have spawned multiple translations, bowdlerizations, dramatizations and parodies. The author shows how the "sexist" content of most fairy tales (the hero is almost always a male) has triggered feminist re-interpretations. Finally, there is no "authentic" version of fairy tales; all of them, including the ones collected by the Brothers Grimm, have been "contaminated", i.e. adapted and collated from multiple sources.

The final chapter on the phenomenal success of the Harry Potter books seems to be the one most American readers have focused on. It stresses the stereotypical aspects of the stories and the commercial hype that attended their release, and, again, their sexist nature - one of the author's pet peeves.

While some of these arguments seem excessively gloomy, all of them deserve our thoughtful consideration.

While I admire Zipes work in general, I think he's missed the point about Harry Potter. Zipes remarks that Harry is a classic boy scout, a straight arrow (...). He complains that the novels follow a tedious and grating fairy tale formula (...). The only difference between Harry and anyone else, according to Zipes, is that Harry has a lightning-shaped scar on his forehead (178).

Zipes misses the point on the importance of the scar - the scar is the central metaphor of the series and the importance of scars and wounding says something about our culture's adoption of this particular hero.

Reading clearly has talent, but it lies in the realm of the succenct haiku-like cryptogram. Many of these poems are first-draft indulgences, collected in a helter-skelter manner. This book would clearly not have been published in America, nor could it have gotten past many of the poetry manuscript contests here. Reading is best at keeping his mouth shut ("Alert!", a poem several pages in length should have never been written, let alone published) and his thoughts mysterious. And if there is a failure here, it's in Reading's lack of an editor (an editor who is also a ruthless critic). Every writer needs one, Reading more than most.

Jacqueline Rose has done some serious scholarship in literary criticism, but this work is dubious, at best. I'm not sure why she misses the mark so poorly in this extended essay on the link between children's fiction and the publishing industry. But the work is very un-focused and rather trite. The approach is a bit dated, and I can imagine that perhaps the book is more an extended discourse on the theoretical apparatus that she seems to be enamored with rather than a solid interpretation of Peter Pan. The book is really an odd one, and it left me feeling so disgusted that I did not wish to finish the tome. Although, the other reviewers are a bit too vituperative in their critique, this book really strikes me as somewhat immature.

Rose's analysis is dubious. She attempts to make the claim that Barrie created a new genre of fantasy with the publication of Peter Pan. The problem is that Barrie's books about Peter Pan are actually components of a genre well-studied and documented for hundreds of years. Even a cursory read of scholarship in folklore would have clearly demonstrated to Rose that Peter Pan is a Marchen, a genre of folklore in which a poor, obscure hero is called to complete acts of bravery in a land of fantasy and magic. There are numerous other problems with her analysis. Even reading this study as an essay on contemporary social issues is a confusing exercise, at best, because Rose's style tends to obfuscate rather than to provide any semblance of clarity. Sorry to be so critical of literary criticism, but incoherence and bad writing simply do not belong in scholarly discourse.

I am a high school student and I am not ashamed to say that i have an affinity for children's literature, particularly english, such as Alice in Wonderland, Harry Potter (all of them), and especially PETER PAN. This literature contains a magic that this author proceeds to bash at every chance she gets. I mean, are children supposed to read about oil spills and war? Preserve the magic of childhood people!

Was looking for some listing of old songs with ukulele chords. Not this book! Poetry along the archie and mehitabel line. A few interspersed paragraphs, starting on page 20, about how to hold and strum and finger the uke and that's it! 95% is avant garde post modern 'poetry' if that is what you are looking for.