Tying in with political and cultural changes in Europe, this volume focuses on current discourses on the significance of democratic systems in opposition to authoritarian regimes, to fathom the transformations but also the continuities in children's and young adult literature from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present. One aim of the book is to calibrate the political, poetic, and receptive examination of children's and young adult literature and to depict it from a historical and systematic perspective. Characterized by an internationally comparative scope this volume revolves around the following questions with a view to childhood constructions: What continuities but also changes are discernible? What political and ideological concepts are inherent in children's and young adult literature? How are World War II and the postwar period represented in children's books? What role do trauma and (post)memory play? And how is the discourse on flight and migration shaped?