title: Deconstructing the Hero: Literary Theory and Children's Literature
author:  Margery Hourihan 
description: <STRONG>'Thorough but evidently accessible poststructuralist approach to classic children's texts. A very good introduction to such an approach for English students.'</STRONG> - <EM> J. A. Winston, University of Warwick</EM>
zlib_text: 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  THE BOY IN THE DARK
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Book 4 of the Middengard Sagas
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  “The little boy lost in the lonely fen,
  
  
  Led by the wand’ring light,
  
  
  Began to cry, but God ever nigh,
  
  
  Appear’d like his father in white.
  
  
  
  
  
  He kissed the child & by the hand led
  
  
  And to his mother brought,
  
  
  Who in sorrow pale, thro’ the lonely dale
  
  
  Her little boy weeping sought.”
  
  
  
  
  
  William Blake: The Little Boy Found
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  “There once was a maid, free of all care,
  
  
  Who met her true love on midsummer’s day.
  
  
  Give me your heart, said he, and I promise thee fair,
  
  
  I shall never forsake thee and here I shall stay.
  
  
  
  
  
  But the promise was broken and her love did go,
  
  
  So the foolish maid was left a-yearning.
  
  
  Every day she watched till midwinter’s snow,
  
  
  Until her heart was stone and full of mourning.”
  
  
  
  
  
  Old Middengard Text: The Maid’s Lament
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  AUSTRALIA – DECEMBER 2008
  
  
  Chapter 1
  
  
  
  
  
  It was a sunny day towards the end of term 