Hunt with a Canon

Abstract

Hunt with a Canon Perry Nodelman (bio) Hunt, Peter , ed. Children's Literature: The Development of Criticism. London and New York: Routledge, 1990. Hunt, Peter , ed. Literature for Children: Contemporary Criticism. London and New York: Routledge, 1992. These two books are not what they appear to be. They are, however, very entertaining; and they are entertaining exactly because they are not what they appear to be. They are not, despite the claim made in the subtitle of the first volume, a history of the development of children's literature criticism—nor even of "the way in which the criticism of children's literature—and indeed, the subject itself—has developed, particularly in the last forty years" (Development 1). Hunt rather dismissively covers pre-1945 children's literature criticism in about twenty pages of excerpts and represents the entire next quarter century by just one essay. He justifies this practice by asserting that his book "is not a history of criticism, or a history of children's literature. It is not intended to be comprehensive, or to suggest any particular partisan route to the understanding of the field of children's books. Rather, it attempts to give some characteristic points of view. The texts and extracts printed here either clear the ground or provide a foundation for future work" (13). In the rest of the first volume, then, and all of the second, the focus is on still-current concerns—which raises a question about why any history was included at all. This focus pleases me—I have to admit that I find the contemporary issues more interesting than the history seemingly promised but never delivered. A second thing these books are not—or at least, not exactly—are the anthologies of previously published essays that their tables of contents and back jackets seem to suggest, and that I had first thought they were. Much of their content is, in fact, reprinted articles. But three of the eight essays in the second volume are new: one by C.W. Sullivan III on folklore and fantasy, one by Nicholas Tucker on psychology, and one by Tony Watkins on new historicism. Furthermore, one of the other essays, a piece on picture books by Geoff Moss that appeared earlier in the Quarterly, has an entire second half added. Again, I'm glad I was misled; the presence of these new materials makes the second volume a more stimulating intellectual experience than would have been provided by the collection of reprints it first appeared to be. Meanwhile, six of the thirteen pieces listed in the table of contents of the first volume are not complete pieces, only excerpts—and that table doesn't even mention a number of other lengthy excerpts from a variety of other writers. Despite the table of contents' silence, some of these excerpts, from writers such as Geoffrey Trease, Dennis Butts, Myles McDowell, Brian Alderson, Michael Benton, and Jane Doonan, are just about as long as some of the ones listed. There is both less and more for your money here than first appears. In volume two, the habit of excerpting expands prodigiously. Hunt's sixteen-page introduction includes a page and a half of Perry Nodelman (a brilliant page and a half too, I might add), a page of Samuel Pickering, a page and a half of Mitzi Myers, another page and a half of Nodelman (also brilliant), two pages of Aidan Chambers, and a page or so of shorter quotes—and only about eight pages of Hunt to hold all the rest together. The excerpts take over entirely in the poetry piece in the second volume. It consists of extended quotes from a variety of sources loosely held together by Hunt's commentary: "I have been unable to find a single essay that adequately explores the problems of discussing—or even defining—verse and poetry for children. Similarly . . . there is a lack of any extensive theoretical discussion of the links between children's literature and education. In an attempt to partially remedy this, I have edited together a series of extracts" (14-15). It is exactly all these extracts, and the contexts that Hunt provides for them, that makes...