Critical Approaches to Food in Children’s Literature (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Critical Approaches to Food in Children’s Literature Nikola von Merveldt Kara K. Keeling and Scott T. Pollard (Eds) Critical Approaches to Food in Children’s Literature (Series: Children’s literature and culture; 59) New York: Routledge 2009 XIIIpp, 276pp ISBN 9780415963664 US$ 104.00 The culinary turn has reached children’s literature scholarship. Following Carolyn Daniel’s 2006 study Voracious children; Who eats whom in children’s literature, published in the same series, the editors [End Page 49] of this volume aim to show what the burgeoning interdisciplinary field of “food studies” can contribute to a deeper understanding of children’s literature. Following an introductory chapter in which Keeling and Pollard trace the early history of food studies within the social sciences, arts, and humanities and argue their significance for literary studies, seventeen Anglo-American scholars demonstrate what studying food “as a powerful and complex signifying force” (13) can mean and why it should matter. Click for larger view View full resolution While Jodie Slothower and Jan Susina show, for example, how cooking recipes connected to literary characters can lead to a “form of literary cannibalism in which you become what you eat” (36), the feminist-inspired contributions of part three (“Girls, Mothers, Children”) examine gender and generational relations by uncovering the metaphorical dimensions and ideological underpinnings of scenes of nurturing, cooking, and eating. In part IV (“Food and the Body”), authors focus on the social and moral force symbolized by food and its effects on the (political) body -- such as the stigmatizing of male obesity in British children’s literature studied by Jean Webb. Issues of complex ethnic and historical identities are addressed in part V (“Global/Multicultural/Postcolonial Food”), which extends the corpus beyond the Anglo-American tradition to include U.S.-Asian, Mexican, and Brazilian texts. Part VI (“Through Food the/a Self ”) concludes the inspiring volume by exploring the role food plays in the various constructions and deconstructions of childhood identity and agency. [End Page 50] Copyright © 2010 Bookbird, Inc