Girl-Animal Metamorphoses: Voice, Choice, and (Material) Agency of the Transforming Female Body in Young Adult Literature

Abstract

This article draws on theories of material feminism and children’s literature scholarship to examine the relationship between the metamorphing adolescent body and language in two texts that deal with girl-animal metamorphoses: Justine Larbalestier’s Liar and Peter Dickinson’s Eva. In particular, it examines how the materiality of the characters’ transforming bodies gives them agency when they are silenced on the level of the human, and more important, how the liminality of the metamorph’s body influences their access to human language, which in turn enables them to survive in their respective societies.