Bloody murder [electronic resource] : the homicide tradition in children's literature / Michelle Ann Abate.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Once upon a crime: homicide in American culture and popular children's literature from "Bluebeard" to Harry Potter -- "You must kill her and bring me her lungs and liver as proof": "Snow White" and the fact as well as fantasy of filicide -- "The queen had only one way of settling all difficulties... 'off with his head!' ": Alice's adventures in Wonderland and the anti-gallows movement -- "Swarthy, sun-tanned, villainous looking fellows": Tarzan of the apes and criminal anthropology -- -- "A sixth sense seemed to tell her that she had encountered something unusual": psychic sleuthing in the Nancy Drew mystery series -- "How'd you like that haircut to begin just below the chin?": juvenile delinquency, teenager killers and a pulp aesthetic in the Outsiders -- "My job is... to make you a human being in the eyes of the jury": confronting the dramatization-and demonization-of murder in Walter Dean Myers' monster -- Epilogue: "Just because you don't have a pulse doesn't mean you can't be perky": my so-called death, young adult zombie fiction and murder in the posthuman age.

Description based on print version record.