The Year's Work in Children's Literature Studies: 1988

Abstract

The Year's Work in Children's Literature Studies: 1988 Gillian Adams Readers will note that the bibliography for 1988 is more than double the size of that for 1987. The increase in size is not only because we have consulted more journals and accessed more data bases, but also because of an increasing interest in children's literature studies. Three new journals exclusively devoted to children's literature have recently appeared: Five Owls, the International Review of Children's Literature and Librarianship, and the New Advocate, an attractive rebirth of the Advocate. Thus the demise of Phaedrus, which ceases publication after volume 13, 1988, has already been compensated for in regard to the quantity of articles, if not in regard to its special contributions to the field. Let us hope that Phaedrus will also be reborn, perhaps under the aegis of a Comparative Literature Department, the logical place for a journal of its international orientation. A final reason for the large size of the bibliography is its inclusive nature. If the question of what should properly constitute its subject is addressed from the point of view of audience rather than authors and publishers and their intentions, the definition of children's literature must be inclusive rather than exclusive: works for which there is compelling evidence that they have been read and enjoyed by a substantial number of children over a period of years. A theoretical basis for such a view is provided by Reception Aesthetics, which rejects the idea of a natural dichotomy between children's and adult literature; see, for example, Dagmar Grenz's article on E.T.A. Hoffmann. A complex literary text, then, has a range of possibilities which allows its readers to understand it differently but adequately; if the possibilities of an "adult" book like Robinson Crusoe admit of enjoyment and understanding by an audience that includes a substantial number of children, articles about it, particularly those of a sufficiently generalized nature to illuminate what children may understand and appreciate, belong in a bibliography of children's literature. Indeed, several articles in this bibliography address the child or young adult audience for works usually assumed to be for adults, for example Alan MacGregor's article on Sir Walter Scott. On the other hand, articles about a work for children appropriated by adults like Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn also belong in the bibliography since the book continues to be enjoyed by some children. Two recent critical articles appearing in scholarly journals usually devoted to adult literature recognize that the work is, in fact, a children's book; the one by Alan Gribben places it in the context of the boy book. This bibliography differs from that of 1987 not only in size, but in the number and nature of the categories into which it is classified. It is our hope that the classification system will aid the researcher in determining what has been neglected as well as what has already been more than adequately covered. Of note is the opportunity for further studies signaled by the articles, primarily short memorials, on members of the profession who have recently died. E.M. Bodecker, Elizabeth Cleaver, Elizabeth Coatsworth, Eleanor Estes, Paul Galdone, Roger Lancelyn Green, Joan Hassell, Virginia Haviland, Charles Keeping, Ann Lawrence, Ursula Nordstrom, and Noel Streatfield are some of these authors, illustrators, editors, and critics whose work deserves a more thorough evaluation. The revised categories, then, afford a picture of the current preoccupations of scholars of children's literature and related subjects. "Canon and Censorship" demonstrates a concern not only with overt censorship, particularly with the bowdlerizing and sanitizing of authors like Lofting and Potter, but with the censorship exercised by the formation of a canon of "good" books which excludes "rubbish" or dismisses older works as no longer relevant. Over 40 articles in "Curriculum" advocate using "real" books to teach reading or describe ways of doing so; only a few articles discuss the problems that can arise. "Collections and Exhibitions" is a new category, added because there were enough items to set it off by itself. Several important private collections of children's literature have recently passed to public institutions, and further information is...