Writing about Children's and Young Adult -- ChYA -- Literature
You do not chop off a section of your imaginative substance
and make a book specifically for children,
for — if you are honest — you have no idea where childhood ends and maturity begins.
It is all endless and all one. ~~ P. L. Travers
As quoted in Sticks and Stones: The Troublesome Success of Children's Literature from Slovenly Peter to Harry Potter (2002) by Jack Zipes
and make a book specifically for children,
for — if you are honest — you have no idea where childhood ends and maturity begins.
It is all endless and all one. ~~ P. L. Travers
As quoted in Sticks and Stones: The Troublesome Success of Children's Literature from Slovenly Peter to Harry Potter (2002) by Jack Zipes
Honesty compels me to admit that I study and teach children's and young adult -- ChYA -- literature precisely because I have, in P. L. Travers' words, "no idea of where childhood ends and maturity begins." In my mind, the two are not mutually exclusive. I find great wisdom in the the simplest picture books, and I find complex conundrums in the stories of E. B. White, Dr. Seuss, Arnold Lobel, Walter Dean Myers, Madeleine L'Engle, P. L. Travers, and others. From Sam-I-Am's "You do not like them, so you say; Try them! Try them, and you may!" to Charlotte's "..after all, what's a life anyway? We're born, we live a little while, we die...By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone's life can stand a little of that,” ChYA literature pulls me in for a closer, deeper look.
I have written, among other topics, about changing constructions of health as seen in the stories, ads, and articles of a 19th century American youth periodical; about a rebuttal to the British 1870 Public Education Act found in a Scottish children's novel; about globalization and absurdity in a 21st century early reader series; and about the horror tropes found in a picture book and children's novel about standardized testing in modern public schools.
I have written, among other topics, about changing constructions of health as seen in the stories, ads, and articles of a 19th century American youth periodical; about a rebuttal to the British 1870 Public Education Act found in a Scottish children's novel; about globalization and absurdity in a 21st century early reader series; and about the horror tropes found in a picture book and children's novel about standardized testing in modern public schools.
20th & 21st Century ChYA Literature
Caught in a Web of Abjection: High-Stakes Testing in
Miriam Cohen's First Grade Takes a Test and Andrew Clements' The Report Card
Miriam Cohen's First Grade Takes a Test and Andrew Clements' The Report Card
While most children's books about testing seek to reassure children that testing is a normal part of the education process and provide strategies for taking tests, Miriam Cohen's (2006/1980) First Grade Takes a Test and Andrew Clements' (2004) The Report Card challenge young readers to think more critically about tests and the testing process.
In this essay, I explore the ways Cohen and Clements "invite young readers to question the purposes and validity of the tests they are required to take. Both authors clearly present the more insidious aspects of testing and question the tests’ assumptions of normalcy, and each suggests the adults themselves are caught in the same web created by the agencies and institutions they serve. However, when read in the light of Kristeva’s (1982/1980) descriptions of the abject as that which is on the border of identity, Cohen’s and Clements’ stories go further, raising the specter of a disturbing scenario involving an underlying and diabolical institutional mindset—a mind behind the test—that, through the guise of testing, blurs borders of identity, collapses meaning and perceptions of what is normal, and contributes to the resulting abjection of all participants, especially children identified as geniuses" (from the abstract).
This article is one of several in a themed issue of Children's Literature in Education titled "Education Caution Bad; Cautionary Tales from the United States" and was edited by Elizabeth A. Marshall and Lissa Paul.
Anderson, A.W. (2018). Caught in a web of abjection: High-stakes testing in Miriam Cohen's First Grade Takes a Test and Andrew Clements' The Report Card. Children's Literature in Education, 49(1), 19-33.
In this essay, I explore the ways Cohen and Clements "invite young readers to question the purposes and validity of the tests they are required to take. Both authors clearly present the more insidious aspects of testing and question the tests’ assumptions of normalcy, and each suggests the adults themselves are caught in the same web created by the agencies and institutions they serve. However, when read in the light of Kristeva’s (1982/1980) descriptions of the abject as that which is on the border of identity, Cohen’s and Clements’ stories go further, raising the specter of a disturbing scenario involving an underlying and diabolical institutional mindset—a mind behind the test—that, through the guise of testing, blurs borders of identity, collapses meaning and perceptions of what is normal, and contributes to the resulting abjection of all participants, especially children identified as geniuses" (from the abstract).
This article is one of several in a themed issue of Children's Literature in Education titled "Education Caution Bad; Cautionary Tales from the United States" and was edited by Elizabeth A. Marshall and Lissa Paul.
Anderson, A.W. (2018). Caught in a web of abjection: High-stakes testing in Miriam Cohen's First Grade Takes a Test and Andrew Clements' The Report Card. Children's Literature in Education, 49(1), 19-33.
From Chapter 8:
Whose idea is it anyway? Big ideas in Jurassic Park, Jumanji, and The Cat in the Hat In this essay, I introduce ideas of intertextuality by examining the book and film versions of Michael Chrichton's Jurassic Park (book, 1990; film, 1993) and Chris Van Allsburg's Jumanji (book, 1981; film, 1995) -- which were the first and second films to use computer generated imagery (CGI) -- and then hearkening back to another creatures-running-amok story, Dr. Seuss's The Cat in the Hat (1957).
Published March 2016: Dr. Jenifer Schneider developed the University of South Florida's first Open Access e-textbook, The Inside, Outside, and Upside Downs of Children's Literature: From Poets and Pop-Ups to Princesses and Porridge. Designed to be used in the capstone exit-writing Children's Literature course offered online to non-Education majors across campus, Schneider's (2016) interactive work includes chapters on why and how to read children's and YA literature, how to write children's and YA literature, and the broad range of media formats that comprise the field of children's and YA literature. Dr. Schneider wrote her book in response to the University's Textbook Affordability Project. A video trailer for the book can be viewed here: https://vimeo.com/136629099 Anderson, A.W. (2016). Whose idea is it anyway? Big ideas in Jurassic Park, Jumanji, and The cat in the hat. In J. J. Schneider (Ed.). The Inside, Outside, and Upside Downs of Children's Literature: From Poets and Pop-ups to Princesses and Porridge [E-book]. USF Scholar Commons: Retrieved from http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/childrens_lit_textbook/ (article within a book chapter) |
Chapter 12:
The World is Flat, Stanley: Globalization, Ethnocentricity, and Absurdity (with Rebecca L. Powell) First published in 1964, Jeff Brown’s Flat Stanley became, in the 1990s, an internationally recognized character when schoolchildren began mailing Stanley cut-outs to pen pals. More recently, a digitized Stanley travels via email and cellphone, a new series of books sends Stanley on transnational adventures, and another series of I Can Read! books depicts Stanley in neighborhood activities. In each version, Flat Stanley appears to be a harmless ambassador of multiculturalism who, with a dose of humor, solves mysteries and makes friends with people from around the world. A closer look, however, reveals stereotypical depictions of the people and places Stanley encounters, raising questions about growing globalization, about innate ethnocentrism, and about the limits of presenting a layered portrayal of any culture, particularly in Early Readers with their minimal page count. Nevertheless, the various ways humans respond to difference are common threads running through the Flat Stanley books, and these depictions are complex and contradictory: Stanley’s physical flatness makes him an absurd character whose difference cannot be shared by any human reader, metaphorically placing all readers into a position of “Other.” The books show readers the world from Stanley’s unique perspective, thereby helping readers question their own assumptions about difference.
Anderson, A.W. & Powell, R. L. (2016). The world is flat, Stanley: Globalization, ethnocentricity, and absurdity. In A. Wannamaker and J. M. Miskec (Eds.). The Early Reader in Children’s Literature and Culture. London, U.K.: Routledge. |
My Little Pony: Elements of Harmony:
Friendship is Magic: The Official Guidebook to the Animated, Animating, and Ani-Meta Worlds of Equestria |
The Abjection of Genius:
Subverting High-Stakes Testing in First Grade Takes a Test and The Report Card |
Since 1981, Hasbro has offered a line of pony-related toys and paraphernalia, which grew into an entertainment franchise that includes four generations of comic books, television series, feature-length movies, video games, and more. One of the more recent publications is a guidebook to Friendship is Magic, one of the fourth generation television series featuring My Little Pony characters living in the world of Equestria.
In this paper, I consider My Little Pony: The Elements of Harmony: Friendship is Magic: The Official Guidebook, authored by Brandon T. Snider, both literally, as a work of travel literature that explores the fictional world of Equestria, and metaphorically for what it offers fans in terms of animating spiritual and psychological guidance. More specifically, while the book provides a map of Equestria, a mythological history, and genealogical information about the characters, two-thirds of its almost 300 pages consists of summaries of more than 200 episodes of the television series. Each two-page summary ends with a Friendship Lesson in the form of a quote from one of the characters in the episode. Additionally, while the guidebook’s focus clearly is the animated and animating world of Equestria, the author also inserts a metanarrative thread by including comments from the show’s writers and concept drawings from its artists, thus also providing a brief guide to the creation of the world of My Little Pony and raising questions about where animation begins and ends. Anderson, A.W. (2016, June). My Little Pony: Elements of harmony: Friendship is magic: The official guidebook to the animated, animating, and ani-meta worlds of Equestria. Paper presented at the Children's Literature Association Conference, Columbus, OH. |
Horror is relative, and some of the most horrific literary tales are set against a backdrop of the everyday and the mundane. In this paper, I examine Miriam Cohen’s First Grade Takes a Test and Andrew Clements’ The Report Card, neither of which features ghosts, gore, or gruesome death. Read in the light of Kristeva’s thoughts about abjection, however, Cohen’s and Clements’ stories suggest the mundane classroom, where most Western children spend their days, is the metaphoric setting for that most horrific of stories—the one where parents send their children off to be nurtured and taught only to discover the children instead are being lobotomized and robotized. Both books feature precocious protagonists—one a first grader, the other a fifth-grader—each of whom must choose between a form of intellectual suicide by denying her own mental capacities and metaphoric murder by not only defying parental and institutional expectations and norms but by severing relationships with friends.
While both books—Cohen’s, a primary-level picture book, and Clements’, a middle-grades chapter book—raise questions about the societal abjection and self-abjection of genius, about the choices children have in shaping their own education, and about the possibility that even the smallest subversive act can change the course of the future, both books end with the reader thinking the monsters have been defeated. After all, responsible adults have glimpsed the madness masked by the mundane. Unless, of course, they—oh, but that possibility is too horrific to ponder. Anderson, A.W. (2015, June). The abjection of genius and the subversion of high-stakes testing in First grade takes a test and The report card. Children’s Literature Association Conference, Richmond, VA. |
Adult Retrospectives: An Ethnographic Content Analysis of How Children's Book Authors Depict
Teachers and Administrators (with Matt Blankenship, second author) How children perceive school and the adults who work in those schools depends partly on their direct day-to-day experiences in these institutions and their interactions--both one-on-one and collectively--with teachers, principals, bus drivers, cafeteria workers, and other adults. However, children also form impressions about institutions, people, and events based on the fictive world created by authors of stories set in institutions such as school. Authors of children’s stories present both cognitive information about and emotional responses to the institution, or environment, a three-fold dimension Illiser (2003) argued was necessary for learning to occur.
To answer questions of what kind of learning material was offered in children’s stories about school—especially about teachers and principals—we conducted an ethnographic content analysis of ten children’s stories set in schools, published in 2004, written by well-known authors, and collected in a volume called Tripping Over the Lunch Lady and Other School Stories. After introducing our source, we discuss discourses of teacher and administrator identities, then discuss the methodology of ethnographic content analysis and theories of literary text, and finally present our findings in the form of a dialogue between two researchers of differing backgrounds and perspectives. Anderson, A.W., & Blankenship, M.U. (2013, April). Adult retrospectives: An ethnographic content analysis of how children’s book authors depict teachers and administrators. Paper presented at the University of South Florida Inquiry Conference, Tampa, FL. |
Behind the “Paper Curtain”:
Elise Sanguinetti’s The Last of the Whitfields, Integration, and the Northern Press The 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown vs. Board of Education, which opened public schoolhouse doors to children of all races, met organized resistance in the South, in turn drawing the attention of Northern journalists. While much has been written about the press’s influence in furthering Civil Rights Movement legislation, little has been written about the Southern perception that, in publishing only certain types of stories, the Northern press drew a “paper curtain” around the South. Elise Sanguinetti’s 1962 novel, The Last of the Whitfields, explores life behind this paper curtain through the eyes of thirteen-year-old Felicia Whitfield, daughter of a generations-back White Southern family. Sanguinetti, who grew up in Anniston, Alabama, as the daughter of a Southern newspaperman and a Norwegian-born mother, and who was a classmate of Harper Lee, wrote The Last of the Whitfields to counter what she saw as articles that portrayed all Southerners with the broad brush of stereotype. In this paper, I consider examples of 1950s-era Northern journalism and Sanguinetti’s The Last of the Whitfields in the light of Derrida’s paradoxical assertion that ethnocentricity can only be recognized in one’s own self by using ethnocentric thinking. As Sanguinetti’s work remains largely unstudied—and much remains unpublished—I discuss the implications of the absence of such literature on discussions about diversity.
Anderson, A.W. (2014, June). Behind the “paper curtain”: Elise Sanguinetti’s The last of the Whitfields, integration, and the Northern press. Paper presented as part of the Southern Studies Panel at the Children’s Literature Association Conference, Columbia, SC. |
Impudence, Serious Nonsense, or Black Magic: Identity and The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins
(with Jenifer Schneider and Melanie Griffin, first and third authors)
(with Jenifer Schneider and Melanie Griffin, first and third authors)
Hats. As high-fashion couture, religious symbol, or theatrical costume, hats serve both function and form. Hat design, as art and trade, reflects historical trends and captures cultural evolution in time and space (Blume).
Dr. Seuss. As pop-culture phenomenon and prolific writer of children’s verse, Theodor Geisel, used hats to refashion his jointless, exaggerated figures into unique characters. Inspired by his personal collection of hats from around the world, he wrote his second book, The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins, as a testament to the illusory meaning of hats. Dr. Seuss viewed hats as transformational. The assortment of hats, found throughout his books, were essential in creating diversity among similarly illustrated characters. Beginning with Bartholomew Cubbins and continuing through the Yooks and Zooks, Dr. Seuss merged millinery flamboyancy and haberdashery designs to create clever characterization and narrative depth.
In this paper, we examine a collection of Dr. Seuss’ books to identify his creation of hats as spaces for character development and social commentary. Looking specifically at character identity construction and studying the role of costuming in creating performed identities, our goal is to document the scope of Dr. Seuss’ hats as curators of semiotic and aesthetic messages.
Schneider, J. J., Anderson, A.W., and Griffin, M. (2014, June). Impudence, serious nonsense, or black magic: Identity and The 500 hats of Bartholomew Cubbins. Presented at the Children’s Literature Association Conference, Columbia, SC.
Dr. Seuss. As pop-culture phenomenon and prolific writer of children’s verse, Theodor Geisel, used hats to refashion his jointless, exaggerated figures into unique characters. Inspired by his personal collection of hats from around the world, he wrote his second book, The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins, as a testament to the illusory meaning of hats. Dr. Seuss viewed hats as transformational. The assortment of hats, found throughout his books, were essential in creating diversity among similarly illustrated characters. Beginning with Bartholomew Cubbins and continuing through the Yooks and Zooks, Dr. Seuss merged millinery flamboyancy and haberdashery designs to create clever characterization and narrative depth.
In this paper, we examine a collection of Dr. Seuss’ books to identify his creation of hats as spaces for character development and social commentary. Looking specifically at character identity construction and studying the role of costuming in creating performed identities, our goal is to document the scope of Dr. Seuss’ hats as curators of semiotic and aesthetic messages.
Schneider, J. J., Anderson, A.W., and Griffin, M. (2014, June). Impudence, serious nonsense, or black magic: Identity and The 500 hats of Bartholomew Cubbins. Presented at the Children’s Literature Association Conference, Columbia, SC.
19th Century
British and American ChYA Literature
British and American ChYA Literature
Straddling Boundaries: Gutta Percha Willie
and the 1870 Education Act George MacDonald’s The History of Gutta Percha Willie, also known as Gutta Percha Willie, The Working Genius, is one of MacDonald’s three realistic children’s novels. Written in the early 1870s, the book presents a romanticized, idealized view of the journey from childhood into adulthood. Set not quite in the realm of reality and not quite in the realm of the fantastic, Gutta Percha Willie straddles a number of boundaries. For example, while the book lacks the didactic tone of some other 19th century works for children, MacDonald’s topic clearly is the education of children. After introducing, in the first chapter, Willie and his home, MacDonald titles the second chapter “Willie’s Education” and, in the first paragraph, tells the reader that Willie’s “father had unusual ideas about how he [Willie] ought to be educated” (7). The book follows Willie as he learns a variety of physical and mental skills, and MacDonald “makes a story” (6) of unfolding Willie’s idealized inward and outward journey toward realizing his life’s work and purpose.
The inciting incident for the story, however, may have had as much to do with politics and religion as with education. Gutta Percha Willie may have been MacDonald’s response to the discussion in the British Houses of Parliament surrounding the 1870 Education Act, an act which mandated school attendance for children ages five through twelve. The precepts and consequences of this and similar acts still generate heated debate on both sides of the Atlantic almost a century and a half later. In this paper, I briefly recount the history of Western thinking about education, then examine the context in which the 1870 Act was set, and, finally, discuss MacDonald’s attempts to reconcile disparate perspectives about education in Gutta Percha Willie, The Working Genius. Anderson, A.W. (2013). Straddling boundaries: Gutta Percha Willie and the 1870 Education Act. North Wind: A Journal of George MacDonald Studies, 32, 1-20. |
To Your Good, and Endless, Health!
The Youth’s Companion, Creating an Expectation of Immortality
To read today’s periodicals and to watch current television programs, one could easily conclude we’re all deathly ill, have a morbid fear of halitosis, and spend our days haunting hospital hallways. Ads for the latest remedy or newest preventative medicine sell sickness as much as they sell health. Who would guess that our national hypochondria may be rooted, at least in part,in The Youth’s Companion, one of the nineteenth and early twentieth century’s most widely read magazines by Americans of all ages across the country and even around the world. As with other children’s and youth’s periodical literature, however, few studies have focused on its influence. Nor has much been written about Charles Asbury Stephens, who spent more than sixty years as writer and editor of the magazine and who wrote many of the Companion’s medical columns.
After exploring the origins and evolution of The Youth’s Companion, including Charles Asbury Stephens’ influence, I review several 1891 issues of Youth’s Companion. My findings indicate that many nineteenth century readers received health information in their homes in many of the same ways as do today’s readers and television viewers: through entertaining stories, advertising, and factual articles. The Companion’s lively fiction, referencing modern scientific developments, and authoritative medical articles, both of which were nestled among creative ads promising cures for everything from skin disorders to dyspepsia, held out to nineteenth century American readers the tantalizing hope that “To your good health” might become an endless reality. Anderson, A.W. (2012, June). To your good, and endless, health! How the Youth’s Companion convinced us we could live forever. Paper presented at the Children’s Literature Association Conference, Boston, MA. |