The MA programme benefits enormously from the participation of national and international experts in the discipline, as well as from the enthusiastic commitment of its students. Students on this programme often express a long-standing fascination with children’s and/or young adult literature, and enrol for a variety of reasons. The programme facilitates these several motivations/aims, offering students a wide-ranging course of study in the history and development of children’s and young adult literature from the seventeenth to the twenty-first century, and introducing them to critical areas of research. Part-time students read widely during the course of their first year, when the programme considers a range of topics, including the art and politics of children’s literature; form and genre; and the ever-evolving perceptions of what is deemed ‘suitable’ reading for children and young adults. In their second year, part-time students concentrate on a specific area of research and, with guided supervision, write their dissertations.