Canon report

Abstract

Canon report Michael Steig (bio) My Canon arrived yesterday, and never was two dollars less profitably spent. Perry Nodelman's sprawling super-canon (ChLA Quarterly, Summer, 1980) was of some use—considerable use, indeed, to someone like myself who is only a part-time children's literature specialist, and rather new to the game. But the "official" canon is a travesty of authoritative scholarship. Leaving aside the embarassment of glaring typos and spelling errors, and even leaving aside Peter Neumeyer's complaint (quite justified, I think) about the list's "Anglo-Saxon" bias (Quarterly, Summer, 1983), enough contradiction and absurdity remain to justify a strong protest. Yes, I know one should not object to omissions of favorite authors. But consider: the Canon has three entries for Kipling, and includes The Blue Fairy Book, the contents of which are largely if not wholly covered in the other collections of fairy and folk tales also on the list. Furthermore, some of the omissions are undeniably strange. Just following through Nodelman's 1980 list, I notice a large number of important names ignored by the canon committee: Barrie, Baum, Bemelman, Burton, de Brunhoff, Hoban, Jarrell, Lawson, Leaf, LeGuin (A Wizard of Earthsea is pre-1970), Lofting, Pene du Bois, and Travers. Is Lloyd Alexander really more important than any of these? The Canon pamphlet says, "In cases where the entire work of a writer-illustrator, rather than a specific book, was important, the committee merely gives the author or illustrator's name." Yet not one such entry appears in the main list! As for the list of writers worth watching: Neumeyer has already pointed out that Ardizzone is hardly an illustrator or author of "the last decade"; but the same could be said of Aiken, Avery, Boston, DeJong, Garner, Jannson and Sutcliff. It could also be said of William Steig, whose first children's books appeared in the late sixties, including his Caldecott Medal book. Children's literature as a field of scholarly study has little enough respect as it is. This error-filled product of a committee's compromises should not be allowed to misrepresent the intellectual and scholarly standards of the ChLA, and as a member of the association, I urge that this Canon—rather more like a pop-gun—be withdrawn. [End Page 38] Michael Steig Michael Steig is a Professor of English at Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C. Copyright © 1983 Children's Literature Association