Coats’ starting point was the connection she sees between literature written for children and contemporary theory, especially the theories of the subject, or self, of the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan.  Looking Glasses and Neverlands introduces and explains Lacan’s complex theories of subjectivity and desire through close readings of such canonical children’s books as Charlotte’s Web, Stellaluna, Holes, Tangerine, and The Chocolate War. 

For Coats, “This book is really a culmination of all the connections I had been making throughout graduate school between my classes and my experiences as a teacher and as the mom of a kid with disabilities.”  She explains, “As I finished my Master's program, I had Emily.  Watching her process language and experience taught me a lot about Lacan.  For instance, her first word was ‘book.’  She said it whenever I entered the room.  She also played obsessively with books; her therapists were distressed that she wouldn't play with anything else.  One day we were looking at a picture of the family, and she said, ‘Nana, Pappy, Daddy, Book!’ pointing to me.  Turns out, I was ‘book.’  Her obsession with books stemmed from a connection she had made between that signifier and the maternal; it was her ‘most profound lost object.’”

Reviewers for the University of Iowa Press consider Looking Glasses and Neverlands to be a groundbreaking book.  It’s too soon for the book to have been reviewed in academic journals, but Coats reports one thumbs-up: “It did get stolen from the book display table at the Children’s Literature Association conference in Fresno, so I guess that’s a kind of a compliment.”