This book is the first full-length critical study to explore the rapidly growing cadre of amateur-authored independently-published and niche-market picture books that have been released during the opening decades of the twenty-first century. Emerging from a powerful combination of the ease and affordability of desktop publishing software; the promotional marketing and distribution possibilities allowed by the Internet; and the tremendous national divisiveness over contentious socio-political issues these texts embody a shift in how narratives for young people are being creatively conceived materially constructed and socially consumed in the United States. Abate explores how titles such as My Parents Open Carry (about gun laws) Itâs Just a Plant (about marijuana policy) and My Beautiful Mommy (about the plastic surgery industry) occupy important battle stations in ongoing partisan conflicts while they are simultaneously changing the landscape of American childrenâs literature. The book demonstrates how texts like Little Zizi and Me Tarzan You Jane mark the advent of not simply a new commercial strategy in texts for young readers; they embody a paradigm shift in the way that narratives are being conceived constructed and consumed. Niche market picture books can be seen as a telling barometer about public perceptions concerning children and the social construction of childhood as well as the function of narratives for young readers in the twenty-first century. At the same time these texts reveal compelling new insights about the complex interaction among American print culture childrenâs reading practices and consumer capitalism. Amateur-authored self-published and specialty-subject titles reveal the way in which children childhood and childrenâs literature are both highly political and heavily politicized in the United States. The book will be of interest to scholars and students in the fields of American Stud . Language: English