Topologies of the Classical World in Children's Fiction

This scholarly work offers a sophisticated framework for understanding how children's literature represents classical antiquity through three distinct spatial metaphors. Nelson's cognitive poetics approach reveals how palimpsest, map, and fractal structures in classical reception create different reading experiences and cognitive effects for young readers. The book provides a fresh methodology for analyzing how ancient worlds are constructed in fiction aimed at preteens and adolescents, moving beyond traditional literary criticism to explore the mental processes these narratives trigger.

What distinguishes this study is its interdisciplinary fusion of cognitive science with children's literature scholarship, offering concrete analytical tools for understanding how spatial thinking shapes young readers' engagement with classical themes. Educators and scholars of children's classical reception will find particularly valuable insights into how different narrative structures can either layer historical understanding or fragment classical knowledge for developing minds. Nelson's topological approach ultimately transforms how we perceive the cognitive architecture behind children's encounters with ancient worlds in contemporary fiction.