Beauty, Brains and Brawn: The Construction of Gender in Children's Literature (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Beauty, Brains and Brawn: The Construction of Gender in Children's Literature Ruth Carver Capasso (bio) Beauty, Brains and Brawn: The Construction of Gender in Children's Literature. Edited by Susan Lehr. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2001 The political nature of literature and its role in the construction of identity have become the subject of scholarly inquiry from feminist criticism to post-colonial studies. Susan Lehr's collection of essays, Beauty, Brains and Brawn: The Construction of Gender in Children's Literature, examines children's literature for explicit and implicit messages on gender in an attempt to engage teachers, librarians, and parents in an informed selection of these materials. Fundamental to the collection is the assumption that children should be presented with a wide range of role models. While the theories behind the fourteen articles and eleven author or illustrator profiles are not ground-breaking, the engaging and jargon-free essays convey thoughtful readings and would be particularly useful for an educated general public and beginning students of literary studies. The collection is divided into five sections: "Our Children at the Crossroads: Tough Boys, Fragile Girls?", "Images of Children in Illustrated Books," "Teaching the Past without Corsets and Charity Belts," "Challenging Gender Stereotypes," and "The Politics of Gender: Teaching the Whole Child." Yet apart from the table of contents, these divisions barely exist. There is no editor's introduction justifying the architecture of the collection, nor any demarcations between sections to indicate a change in focus. Instead, a closing article by editor Susan Lehr pulls together the many threads of discussion; the only advantage of saving this function to the end is that it may encourage a greater integrative effort by the reader throughout the reading itself. More confusing is the fact that not all of the articles seem to fit in the section to which they were assigned; Margaret Chang's excellent article on the rewriting of folklore makes no mention of illustration, yet it has been placed in that section. These structural weaknesses don't ultimately damage the collection, however; while there is no sense of rigorous construction of argument, the cluster of concepts treated at varying levels and in different voices has a musical quality of recurring themes. One issue arising in several sections is the use of gender models in historical fiction. Can one accurately portray history if, in deference to modern sensibilities and agendas, one ignores the reality of "corsets and chastity belts"? Belinda Y. Louie argues for a representation of the historical obstacles facing women: "Young readers will never understand the progress achieved if adults lie to them about situations in the past" (148). Novelist Karen Cushman defends her depiction of independent medieval women, writing that it makes "a much more interesting story to have somebody who was at odds with her world, rather than someone who was just happily sitting and embroidering" (99). Janet Hickman tries to strike a balance between the representative figure and the anomalous, inspiring individual who overcame societal restrictions when she counsels that "a variety of contemporaneous responses to the events must be considered in an attempt to understand prevailing attitudes and beliefs of the time" (93). A similar discussion between current Western aspirations and authenticity arises in the articles by Chang, Debbie A. Reese, and Paul O. Zelinsky concerning the adaptation of folklore and non-European subjects. The differing opinions make for stimulating reading and could provoke valuable discussion for a children's literature course. Unfortunately, some of the articles are little more than surveys of contemporary children's literature, describing a number of texts according to limited criteria (such as the portrayal of parents) rather than plunging into sustained criticism. These surveys could be of great use to someone buying or assigning works for young readers or for novices in the field of children's literature trying to develop frameworks through which to begin a study of contemporary issues. But such categorization would be enriched if more authors in the collection followed the example of Reese, Hickman, or Chang, who deepened their studies with references to historical and critical contexts. Just scanning children's literature to see whether it produces a particular set of desired images...