Radical Children’s Literature: Future Visions and Aesthetic Transformations in Juvenile Fiction
by Kimberley Reynolds

Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan,
978-1-4039-8561-3
2007
£45

Readers who subscribe to the frequently expressed opinion that children’s literature is innately conservative both in form and in content, an opinion which in some quarters has become orthodoxy since the publication of Jacqueline Rose’s prestigious The Case of Peter Pan or The Impossibility of Children’s Fiction in 1984, should have their preconceptions shaken by this scholarly volume. It makes much use of not yet published work by researchers into recent innovatory texts, and creates a telling case for the counter position that children’s literature is currently in the forefront both of the attempt to create ‘new visions of how society could function’ and of the aesthetics appropriate to such endeavours.
 
Despite her disclaimer of providing a history of the preceding periods of children’s literature, Reynolds’ knowledge of the characteristics of books written for young people throughout the ages informs her discussion of its contemporary forms. She shows how Rose’s over-selective choice of texts has led to the exclusion of genres which might at the least unsettle her argument. Reynolds, by contrast, gives ample attention to examples from earlier periods which disprove the contention that children’s writers gave little heed to the modernist movement, citing unfamiliar works for children by modernist icons such as Virginia Woolf, James Joyce and Gertrude Stein. She goes on to discuss Tove Jansson’s The Book about Moomin, Mymble and Little My (1952), ‘an unapologetic – indeed a playful and celebratory – response to modernism for children’ (p.35). In fact, like many of the other texts considered, the way this book draws attention to itself by a variety of original devices means that it, and they, could be seen as early forerunners of postmodernism.

Among the genres ignored by Rose nonsense looms large, and Reynolds shows how pioneers such as Carroll and Lear paved the way for Russell Hoban and Eugene Ionesco, among others, to take advantage of the opportunity furnished by children’s propensity for rapid movement between the modes of reality and fantasy. Because of their audience’s openness to wordplay and unfamiliar concepts, they were able to present more extreme and original ideas than might have been acceptable in writing for adults.

A significant part of this book is devoted to fiction for Young Adults, of which Reynolds suggests a tripartite division. Firstly there is literature of containment, such as popular books by Louise Rennison, which is highly entertaining but too often presents young people ‘as dependent, parasitical, and powerless, a group transfixed by their own narcissistic natures’ (p.80). Her second category is nihilistic fiction, exemplified by darker texts such as several by Robert Cormier; a more recent instance is Anne Fine’s The Road of Bones, displaying the evil effects on the protagonist of growing up under a totalitarian regime. A more positive view is taken in the books in Reynolds’ third category, which show young people as ‘ethical, engaged, and effective.’ Among others, she cites Ellen Wittlinger’s Hard Love (1999) and Janet Tashjian’s The Gospel according to Larry (2003), both of which show male protagonists using writing, within a contemporary internet culture, to come to terms with their sexuality and relationships.

To show how books for the young do not avoid difficult issues, Reynolds looks at fiction which confronts subjects such as self-harm, and also texts which are explicit in their treatment of sex and sexuality. A particularly interesting area is that of frightening fiction. Reynolds distinguishes between earlier writing designed to terrify children into good behaviour, and contemporary texts which are more likely to be related to the adolescent experience of change and the consequent feeling of being threatened, while at the same time being constrained by outside forces. There is an interesting discussion of the way in which the Harry Potter books have gone from presenting potentially frightening figures, such as ghosts, as benign, to their incorporation of aspects that, post-9/11, reflect the fears of today’s society. The ‘spin-off’ films and PC games, however, she sees as defusing some of this element of fear, by over-simplifying the narrative to show an overly heroic Harry.
 
The final section of this book takes up the question of how the electronic media affect juvenile fiction, both as represented in book form, and in their effects on literature for the future. The hostility to technology that often appears in books, and the less than imaginative way in which the possibilities of cybertext has often been exploited, should not lead us to pessimism about whether IT skills can be harnessed to positive ends. The Murail siblings’ ‘Golem’ series presents cyberspace as ‘one of the new horizons for adventure’(p.176), while the opportunity that the internet presents to younger people to become children’s writers themselves, for instance through fanzines, opens up possibilities that it is difficult for older generations to envisage. Reynolds’ final message seems to be that it is the generation which has grown up ‘accustomed to encountering different versions of the same text in different formats’ who have the potential to ‘change the meaning of children’s literature’ (p.183).

It will be apparent that there is far more in this book than I can do justice to in a short review. It will become an indispensable critical text to students of twentieth and twenty-first century children’s literature, all the more so for being lucidly written, with all the arguments supported by a wealth of examples. It’s a pity that its price may deter some potential purchasers – but at least they should ensure that their libraries have copies.

This review has been kindly permitted by IBBYlink.

Pat Pinsent