MLA 2022: Word Play: Nonstandard English and Multilingualism in Children’s and Young Adult Literature (Guaranteed Panel)
Children’s literature in English has long been a tool for literacy instruction and acculturation to English language, used both as a tool for learning and as a force for homogenization within histories of Anglophone colonialism and imperialism. As scholars and professors dedicated to exploring the ways in which texts for young people make meaning, we know that language functions as both a tool of empowerment and one of imprisonment.