Though it would seem likely that the testimony of children's writers should help us to define and delimit children's literature, Bator notes the surprising number of children's writers who "profess not to write consciously for children." He suggests that the low status of children's literature is an important reason why so many authors are reluctant to see themselves as writing for a child audience. Bator reprints Clifton Fadiman's comprehensive "Case for a Children's Literature" which focuses on significant characteristics of children's books and "demonstrates that literature's lineage and its contributions," as well as John Rowe Townsend's brief and more pragmatic definition of children's books as those consigned to the children's shelves by a consensus of adults and children. Brief introductions to each section and sub-section allow Bator the opportunity to offer a kind of running commentary on critical priorities and strategies and to set each piece in a critical context.ĭefining children's literature is not as easy as it looks. The second part presents discussions of the various genres of children's literature in order to "map the territory" in some detail. In the first part of the book, Bator has collected essays centering on the definition of children's literature, its status, and the range of critical approaches to it. The selections, therefore, "not equal in length," "nor equally valued," "range from the commonplace to the unique." But all the pieces subscribe to the view that "children's literature can and should be subject to serious critical scrutiny," and the result is a very useful book, which both documents the recent past of children's literature criticism and suggests directions for its future. Some have clearly been chosen not for their intrinsic merit, but rather because they represent some position he wished to include. Bator has deliberately chosen "assertive and analytical articles" representing a wide range of opinions. In this new anthology, Bator offers a selection of essays from past and present which attempt, in various ways, to answer these questions. "The critics continually have had to maintain the necessity for and the propriety of the criticism before gaining clear passage to the actual territory." Still, some of the questions which have pre-occupied the critics seem important: What is children's literature? How has it been perceived in the past? How should it be approached now? Children's literature studies have all too often "run aground on the sandbar of apologetics," says Robert Bator.
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