Coming of Age in Children's Literature : Growth and Maturity in the Work of Phillippa Pearce, Cynthia Voigt and Jan Mark

Providing an examination of the treatment of personal development, maturation and rites of passage in literature written for children and adolescents, this title includes a broad survey of the theme across a number of genres - including adventure and frontier stories, pony stories, school and holiday stories and series fiction - and an in-depth analysis of the work of key writers.

The authors work towards an answer to the question "What is a classic?"