The evolution of children's literature: metafictive devices and digital mediation

In this chapter, the authors draw on a range of theories and interpretive frameworks to outline some important changes in the nature of contemporary children's literature. The research and scholarship in this chapter focuses on the role of metafictive devices and the ways digital mediation have affected the evolution of children's literature, in particular picturebooks. Additional topics include the creation and publication of picturebooks and novels that contain multimodal designs, metafictive devices, digitally mediated interfaces, various levels of interactivity, unique paratextual materials, diverse narrative structures, metaleptic transgressions, and transmedial components.