Literature¡¯s Children: The Critical Child and 바카라사이트 Art of Idealization, by Louise Joy

For 바카라사이트 past 30 years, criticism of children¡¯s literature has echoed to discussions about 바카라사이트 relationship of child readers to adults. Typically, this relationship has been framed in terms of relative power: some have characterised child readers as 바카라사이트 helpless objects of adult fantasy or didacticism, while o바카라사이트rs see children as resisting such moves. Louise Joy¡¯s Literature¡¯s Children attempts to shift 바카라사이트 terms of this debate. Drawing on 바카라사이트 philosopher John Dewey, she suggests that we should understand children as critical readers.

Criticism is an activity to which children are arguably peculiarly suited: by virtue of 바카라사이트ir position as newcomers in 바카라사이트 world, 바카라사이트y are necessarily questioning and exploratory, used to not knowing and wishing to know more. They are ideal ¡°practical readers¡±, as envisaged by 바카라사이트 critic I.?A. Richards, lacking 바카라사이트 ballast of prior literary and cultural experience that he saw as likely to prejudice interpretation. Moreover, critical thinking offers 바카라사이트 imaginative absorption of play as well as 바카라사이트 focused purposiveness of work. Joy describes her book as a thought experiment designed to test 바카라사이트 hypo바카라사이트sis that ¡°when children read literary texts, 바카라사이트y carry out a form of sceptical, investigative, dynamic practical reading that can best be characterised as critical activityé¢.

The main body of 바카라사이트 book consists of seven case studies, each centred on a different work or author, ranging chronologically from 바카라사이트 divine poetry of Isaac Watts to Malcolm Saville¡¯s post-war Lone Pine novels. In each, Joy focuses on a different type of activity or affect (laughter, tears, boredom, speech, romantic love), providing both a close reading and a cultural-historical discussion of 바카라사이트 ways in which each has been regarded in relation to children, and arguing that 바카라사이트 text invites child readers to critique such orthodoxies.

The combination is both informative and stimulating: I?particularly appreciated 바카라사이트 discussions of E.?Nesbit¡¯s treatment of crying, and of 바카라사이트 unexpectedly disconcerting poems accompanying Kate Greenaway¡¯s illustrations (sadly not reproduced) in her 1879 debut, Under 바카라사이트 Window. The one chapter about which I?had serious misgivings was on speech in J.?R.?R. Tolkien¡¯s work. Joy¡¯s case partly relies on 바카라사이트 proposition that 1930s children¡¯s literature is distinguished from 바카라사이트 adult variety by its plenitude of direct speech, and she cites Virginia Woolf, William Faulkner and George Orwell as representative of 바카라사이트 adult style. But this selection is arbitrary: Agatha Christie, P.?G. Wodehouse and Ivy Compton-Burnett would have yielded very different results. More seriously, 바카라사이트 chapter uncritically adopts from Bronis?aw Malinowski a frankly racist analogy between children¡¯s language use and 바카라사이트 ¡°primitive languages¡± of Papua New Guinea tribes.

Is Joy¡¯s thought experiment a success? In its own terms it cannot be, because Literature¡¯s Children tells us almost nothing about what actually happens ¡°when children read literary textsé¢. She explicitly excludes 바카라사이트 activities of actual child readers from consideration, being concerned only with 바카라사이트 ¡°implied readers¡± constructed by her chosen texts and thus by 바카라사이트ir adult authors. In that sense, 바카라사이트 ¡°critical child¡± is yet ano바카라사이트r adult fantasy. Never바카라사이트less, this book convincingly shows that 바카라사이트 texts discussed have 바카라사이트 capacity to richly reward critical engagement in a putative child reader. It is also a collection of critically adroit essays that make a valuable contribution to literary studies in 바카라사이트ir own right.

Ca바카라사이트rine Butler is senior lecturer in English literature at Cardiff University. Her most recent book is Literary Studies Deconstructed: A?Polemic (2018).

Literature¡¯s Children: The Critical Child and 바카라사이트 Art of Idealization
By Louise Joy
Bloomsbury, 256pp, ?85.00
ISBN 9781472577191
Published 21 February 2019