The volume Keywords for Children's Literature is not a dictionary in the classical sense of the term. The entries-essays it includes, written by leading theorists in the field, are not limited to simply clarifying important terms for the study of children’s and youth literature. Rather, they highlight the theoretical discussions, disagreements, challenges, and controversies raised by the multiple (re)interpretations of these terms within the framework of an interdisciplinary, transnational approach to children’s literature and childhood.

Terms such as "classic (literary work)", "dispersion", "graphic novel", "trauma", "queer", "postmodernism", or "crossover literature", among others, are approached interdisciplinarily, taking into account their relation to the broad range of perceptions of childhood, both synchronically and diachronically, as well as to other literary traditions beyond the Anglophone.

The thematic scope, interdisciplinarity, and adoption of a transnational perspective make this volume an essential theoretical tool for the critical study of children’s and youth literature.