Roni Natov, The Poetics of Childhood.

New York and London: Routledge, 2002. ISBN 0-8153-3882-1

Review by Lydia Kokkola, Turku University, Finland

The Poetics of Childhood investigates the highly topical subject of the experience and representation of childhood. The texts examined are wide-ranging as Natov winds a path from late eighteenth century Romanticism to twentieth century literature for both adults and children pausing only briefly at the end of the nineteenth century en route. Her texts range from traditional fairy tales to postmodern novels, including picturebooks, life writing and poetry. In brief, despite its Anglo-American focus, this is an ambitious study in terms of both its aims and its subject matter. In the hands of a lesser scholar, the result might well be superficial. Natov's command of the topic, however, is impressive, erudite and honest.

The introduction situates childhood as a space within both individual minds and the collective consciousness of a society. Natov provides an overview of various schools of thought on the poetics of childhood. Whilst the contents imply little new will be offered to well read scholars of children's literature, readers of all backgrounds will undoubtedly be touched by Natov's ability to write. As she shifts between autobiographical criticism, summary and evaluation, she is clear, direct and playful. Her discussions of canonized texts cast familiar ideas in a new light, as she makes connections between texts, the history of ideas and psychology. Ultimately, The Poetics of Childhood is far more original than its introduction suggests.

The chapters are arranged in roughly the order in which the investigated texts were published. In this way, she maps the sites of various views of childhood onto their sociocultural contexts. The notion of the child as monster is mentioned briefly and then dismissed as she turns to dwell on the Romantic child. Alternative views of childhood are measured by their distance from this point. Within this broad framework, she examines varieties of pastoral - the dark pastoral and the antipastoral - as ways of acknowledging the less positive aspects of childhood.
In what at first appears to be an extended side point after her discussion of the Romantic child, Natov discusses the child's separation from the body of the mother. Whilst not strictly speaking offering a new vision of childhood, the mother's body is presented as being a type of pastoral landscape. One of the most interesting ideas presented in this chapter is how the child's longing for symbiosis with the mother's body is sometimes matched by a similar longing for the child by the mother. Although not stated as such, Natov's discussion of The Runaway Bunny may provide a means of explaining why childhood is such a potent and necessary image for adults. The other texts she examines investigate "the need for the child to express difference and, at the same time, closeness, even sameness" whilst commenting on adults' continuing struggle with these needs (72). Since children's books must also appeal to adults in order to be successful, Natov may have touched a central nerve.

Natov divides her investigation of childhood as pastoral into three sections. The traditional view is developed in her chapter on the green world, which is regarded as "a response to the worldliness of the world" (91). This response is not escapist but expresses "the longing for a return to an earlier state, real or imagined" (ibid.). Again, Natov shows how childhood serves adults' needs as "the child actually can serve as the green world itself" (92). Indeed, all the texts investigated in this chapter seem more suggestive of the adults' needs than a reflection of felt experience.

The dark pastoral may be more expressive of actual experience, albeit represented in idealised literary form. The dark pastoral suggests a time of terror which is essential to maturation. By entering the dark wood, the child enters the liminal space between childhood and adulthood. Identifying with either position results in danger and loss. It is a space for growth, but a space that is situated away from the safety of the green world. Time spent in the dark wood is not pleasant, but it enables transformation, and is therefore ultimately optimistic in outlook. By way of contrast, the antipastoral rejects the possibility of pastoral. It denies childhood fears and dislocates the world of childhood from adulthood. Its desolate landscape is softened by ironic humour, but the outlook of these texts is bleak.

Whilst Natov's treatments of each individual author, poet or specific text is detailed, rigorous and innovative, the sheer breadth of her material occasionally leaves the reader groping for coherence. For instance, her penultimate chapter, enticingly titled "The Contemporary Child in Adult Literature" discusses only two novels: The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy and Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible. Her analyses are deeply insightful and thorough. However, she does not explain why she chose these two particular texts, nor does she draw wider generalisations about depictions of the contemporary child in adult literature beyond the obvious statement that they "represent childhood as a way of seeing the world - freshly, and viewed almost from outside" (191). Some readers will naturally find such openness for individual interpretation within the text a positive feature. I, however, longed for clearer statements of Natov's views at this point.
In contrast, her following chapter on the contemporary child in children's literature starts with the generalisation that Western culture is "less protective of children" than earlier generations and suggests that "books which explore the child's psyche as a dark journey dominate the contemporary scene of children's literature and culture" (220). Natov didactically asserts her "belief that a faithful rendering of the story must not leave the child-reader in despair. . . . A poetics for children requires a delicate rendering of hope and honesty" (ibid.). Whilst I do not wholly share Natov's belief, I find the way she ties the (numerous) texts she presents in this chapter together vastly preferable to the limbo readers were left in at the end of the discussion of adult literature.

The Poetics of Childhood is likely to become one of those essential reference books all scholars of children's literature and the literature of childhood will need to have on their shelves. Natov challenges each of us to articulate our understanding of childhood more precisely, and she has provided a vocabulary and framework to assist us in our debate. She has presented us with a map and compass, the choice of direction is ours.

Lydia Kokkola