Efferent Expectations and Aestheticritical Engagements: Children's Responses to Contemporary Biographies About Women

ABSTRACT Since 2016, children's biography has undergone an extraordinary revival. Yet, despite biography's surge in popularity, little is known about children's engagement with the genre. Drawing on data from online interviews and reading sessions gathered in 2020, this article provides insight into how a group of children ( N = 8, age 7–10) in the United Kingdom engaged with four biographical compendiums about women published between 2016 and 2020. Building on Louise Rosenblatt's theory of the efferent‐aesthetic continuum, I propose the term “aestheticritical” as a way of capturing the fusion of aesthetic and critical qualities characterizing many of the children's engagements. Entering into critical, reflective dialogue on a range of social justice issues and questioning the texts' authority with exciting levels of zeal, the children's responses underscore the expansive potential of biographies—and the category of nonfiction more broadly—for fostering engagements that go far beyond factual comprehension.