{"product_id":"where-the-wild-things-were-boyhood-and-permissive-parenting-in-postwar-america-paperback-softback-9781479831890","title":"Where the Wild Things Were; Boyhood and Permissive Parenting in Postwar America (Paperback \/ softback) 9781479831890","description":"\u003cfont face=\"Georgia\"\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"6\"\u003eWhere the Wild Things Were\u003c\/font\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\u003cfont size=\"5\"\u003eBoyhood and Permissive Parenting in Postwar America\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"4\"\u003eHenry Jenkins (Author)\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e9781479831890\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003ePaperback \/ softback, published 25 February 2025\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e384 pages, 32 b\/w and 9 color images\u003cbr\u003e22.9 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.599 kg\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\"An ambitious study, deftly grounded in a generous sampling of popular culture, influential figures of the era, historical scholarship, and his own experience, Henry Jenkins' magisterial \u003ci\u003eWere the Wild Things Were\u003c\/i\u003e invites us on a journey through the many permutations of the permissive imagination. What are you waiting for? Accept his invitation!\" (Philip Nel, author of Was the Cat in the Hat Black?: The Hidden Racism of Children's Literature, and the Need for Diverse Books) \"Impeccably researched; a significant and original contribution to our understanding of baby boom era childhood, and especially boyhood. One of Henry Jenkins's greatest strengths is his ability to show concrete circuits of influence and exchange between childrearing experts and the popular fiction he analyzes. Considering biographies of writers, producers, illustrators, and animators as well as production histories of the texts he analyzes, Jenkins demonstrates the dynamic and reciprocal relations between intellectual and popular culture.\" (Lynn Spigel, Northwestern University)\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eExplores iconic works from \u003ci\u003eThe Cat in the Hat\u003c\/i\u003e to \u003ci\u003eThe Twilight Zone\u003c\/i\u003e to explain cultural trends in parenting and how we conceptualize childhood\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The 60s produced a Baby Boom generation that catalyzed the dawn of a new era—the space age, the age of television, the global age, and the beginnings of civil rights. At the same time, a new paradigm for parenting was unfolding that put emphasis on permissiveness, defined by what it permitted – the free and unfettered impulses of children. Others worried that the wildness of children, personified by the characters in Maurice Sendak's 1963 classic children's book, \u003ci\u003eWhere the Wild Things Are\u003c\/i\u003e, was destructive, disruptive and disrespectful.\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eWhere the Wild Things Were\u003c\/i\u003e centers on the exploding, contentious national conversation about the nature of childhood and parenting in the postwar US emblematized by \u003ci\u003eDr. Spock's Baby and Child Care\u003c\/i\u003e. Renowned scholar Henry Jenkins demonstrates that the language that shaped a growing field of advice literature for parents also informed the period's fictions—in film, television, comics, children's books, and elsewhere—produced for and consumed by children. In particular, Jenkins demonstrates, the era's emblematic child was the boy in the striped shirt: white, male, suburban, middle class, Christian, and above all, American. \u003cbr\u003e Weaving together intellectual histories and popular texts, Jenkins shows how boy protagonists became embodiments of permissive child rearing, as well as the social ideals and contradictions that permissiveness entailed. From \u003ci\u003ePeanuts\u003c\/i\u003e comic strips and TV specials to \u003ci\u003eThe Cat in the Hat, Dennis the Menace, and Jonny Quest\u003c\/i\u003e, the book reveals how childhood and the stories about it became central to Cold War concerns with democracy, citizenship, globalization, the space race, science, race relations, gender, and sexuality. Written by a former boy in a striped shirt, \u003ci\u003eWhere the Wild Things Were\u003c\/i\u003e explores iconic works, from \u003ci\u003eMary Poppins\u003c\/i\u003e to \u003ci\u003eLost in Space\u003c\/i\u003e, contextualizing them through a critical but respectful engagement with the core animating ideas of the permissive imagination.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003c\/font\u003e","brand":"NYU Press","offers":[{"title":"Brand New","offer_id":52591101772056,"sku":"9781479831890","price":24.37,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/freshlyprintedbooks.co.uk\/products\/where-the-wild-things-were-boyhood-and-permissive-parenting-in-postwar-america-paperback-softback-9781479831890","provider":"Freshly Printed Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}