An analytical review of investigations on the relationship between children literature and gender in Latin America

approximations to the role of women as literary characters

Abstract

This article describes the role of women in research on child literature in recent times. The purpose is to inquire about the emergencies related to them based on the evidence provided by the literature review as part of the doctoral dissertation: Innocence, dependence, fragility: towards a reflective hermeneutics on girls’ body imaginaries in Latin-American recent child literature. To do it so, corpus on research, theoretical proposals that aimed at analyzing narratives, and books for kids were examined. The goal was to point out the emergence of women as characters. The literature review was developed considering three main points: 1) child literature: narrative analysis and child books. Its results are some proposals to get to comprehend such literary works. 2) Gender and literature. The purpose was to recognize how analysis, based on gender studies, takes place; and 3) some experience in the relation child-women literature. The main objective is to identify some key issues, ignored so far, which may establish working trends in the field of social studies. Therefore, the conclusions are a set of highlighted elements, relevant for the reflection on imaginaries to the time the question about the role of girls in literature and social life is posed, which is ultimately, the main aspect of the doctoral dissertation.