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This article reads contemporary Chinese children's author Yin Jianling's novels "The Paper Puppy" ("Zhiren") and "Orange Fish" ("Juzi Yu") alongside her letter collection "Fifteen Letters to Girls" ("Zhi Weilai de Ni") to explore the overarching themes of femininity, difference and female sexualities. "The Paper Puppy" weaves homoeroticism, heterosexuality, pre-marital sex and teenage pregnancy into one single novel. Homoeroticism, linked with the curiosity for the changing adolescent female body, marks the end of sexual innocence and the beginning of sexual awakening for protagonist Su, which is entwined intricately with the adolescent girl's physical, emotional and psychological maturation. In contrast, heterosexuality is portrayed in both novels as a deviant and potentially perilous site for adolescent girls. Fraught with the attendant risks of pregnancy, abortion and even suicide, adolescent heterosexual relationships are to be cautioned against. The analysis suggests that despite her self-proclaimed re-traditionalisation and anti-feminist stance in the letters, the sexual discourses in Yin's novels are much more subtle and complex, saturated with feminist and queer overtones. Significantly, in the development of adolescent female sexualities, whether homoerotic or heterosexual, the role of motherhood and adult mentorship is highlighted.

This article explores the representation of the figure of the effeminate boy in two contemporary adolescent novels written in Chinese which break the silence in addressing alternative gender and sexual identities. In "A Beautiful Heart," the transsexual and homosexual tendencies evinced by an effeminate boy are treated as forms of sexual perversion to be cured through professional psychotherapy. The narrative's tensions and contradictions, however, call into question the reductive discourse of pathology. Such questioning unsettles, but does not subvert, the text's explicit conservatism, nor does it attribute legitimacy to queer identities. "The Dream of A Beautiful Lad," on the other hand, sets out expressly to interrogate and shatter the monopoly of received opinions about boyhood, gender, maturity and adulthood. In presenting cases of gender nonconformity, however, the text reveals its own complicity in binarism, carrying with it strong traces of androgynous humanism which, in its intention to validate queer existence, is inevitably coloured by heteronormative and heterosexist prejudices. It is concluded that the various forms of gender-crossing and trans-phenomena represented as accompanying queer boyhood do not necessarily entail transcendence or subversion. The figure of the effeminate boy is nonetheless a welcome presence in children's and adolescent literature, unleashing possibilities for resistance and intervention in a rigidly gender-defined society.

School stories in contemporary China, which target a pre- and early-adolescent readership, frequently evoke representations of girlhood and boyhood in normative gender terms. The present article considers issues of femininity and gender in "Tomboy Dai An" ("Jia Xiaozi Dai An"), one among a series of commercially successful school stories by the popular female author Yang Hongying. Drawing on contemporary theories of gender and sexuality with a primary focus on Judith Butler's work, the article examines critically the text's representations of femininity, its construction of ideal womanhood, and the strenuous labour invested in correcting gender deviations. It is posited that, on the one hand, Yang's text, written with the overt intention to enhance children's gender awareness, serves to guide female children into traditional feminine roles, and as such, risks reaffirming gender stereotypes and perpetuating patriarchal values. On the other hand, by revealing the contingency associated with gendered identities, and by acknowledging that deliberate--and sometimes even violent--efforts need to be made to preempt and correct gender deviations, the text sets out to question, paradoxically and inadvertently, the very stability and authority of gender as a natural fact, calling attention instead to its improvisatory and performative nature. Despite its effort to shape the thinking of young readers, the text nonetheless presents the pre- and early-adolescent years as a potentially deviant site where different possibilities of gender play out.

Modern children's literature in China has largely been dominated by narratives of the nation and nationalism. The present article sets out to question the dominance of that nationalist stance as the country transitioned into the modern era in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. By examining poetic children's literature, the author unravels distinct non-nationalist intellectual sentiments in competition with the mainstream nationalist discourse that point to an imaginative envisioning of modernity. The article starts with a discussion of children's poems and school songs imbued with a strong patriotic zeal in the late Qing and early Republican periods, and then moves on to the May Fourth period when lyricism and romanticism drew the attention of children's literature advocates. Romantic-minded translators and writers, such as Bing Xin, embraced love as a humanist cosmopolitan vision while others, such as Zhou Zuoren and Liu Bannong, turned to local literary heritage, giving rise to a form of children's songs with strong local consciousness. The article concludes by addressing the relevance of the insights derived from the historical case studies for contemporary children's literature in China and beyond. It highlights the possibilities of envisaging modernity in non-nationalist terms and stresses the importance of cultivating in children alternative sentiments in the age of rising nationalism, both past and present.

Modern children’s literature in China has largely been dominated by narratives of the nation and nationalism. The present article sets out to question the dominance of that nationalist stance as the country transitioned into the modern era in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. By examining poetic children’s literature, the author unravels distinct non-nationalist intellectual sentiments in competition with the mainstream nationalist discourse that point to an imaginative envisioning of modernity. The article starts with a discussion of children’s poems and school songs imbued with a strong patriotic zeal in the late Qing and early Republican periods, and then moves on to the May Fourth period when lyricism and romanticism drew the attention of children’s literature advocates. Romantic-minded translators and writers, such as Bing Xin, embraced love as a humanist cosmopolitan vision while others, such as Zhou Zuoren and Liu Bannong, turned to local literary heritage, giving rise to a form of children’s songs with strong local consciousness. The article concludes by addressing the relevance of the insights derived from the historical case studies for contemporary children’s literature in China and beyond. It highlights the possibilities of envisaging modernity in non-nationalist terms and stresses the importance of cultivating in children alternative sentiments in the age of rising nationalism, both past and present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]