SOURCE: Moss, Geoff. “Metafiction and the Poetics of Children's Literature.” Children's Literature Association Quarterly 15, no. 2 (summer 1990): 50-2.

In the following essay, Moss explores metafictional children's texts.

My starting point is the question: “Do metafictional texts have any place in children's literature?”—This is a little like asking: “should children be exposed to post-modernism … ?” To which the answer from children's literature circles might be either, “what on earth are you talking about?” or more likely, “Not bloody likely!” However, there is a Chinese proverb which goes like this: “If you draw your sword against the prince you must throw away the scabbard.” And it is in this spirit of revolutionary (and probably foolhardy) zeal that I want to answer my first question against the background of how we might arrive at and understand the underlying systems of convention which make literary meaning—or a poetics of children's literature.

One...