‘A Special Kind of Reading Game’: Maps in Children's Literature

This article looks at the endpaper maps that often accompany children's novels. Taking its cue from Victor Watson's suggestion that maps ‘are both a signal and an invitation to a special kind of reading game,’ it argues the case that, rather than being considered paratextual, or only ancillary to the narratives they accompany, or (far worse) ideologically confining, as some have suggested, such maps are irreducible to simply the ideology of the individuals who ‘author’ them. Following Michel de Certeau's consideration of the difference between maps and tours, the article then discusses how these maps might unfold spatial potential, repeatedly remaking territory, thereby opening up the notion of spatiality for the reader.