ellemille's review against another edition
3.0
A nice survey of the history of children's literature and collection of lesser known facts about famous children's authors, including Beatrix Potter, Kate Greenaway, J. M. Barrie, and A. A. Milne.
debnanceatreaderbuzz's review
3.0
Little biographical and psychological sketches of well-known children's authors. Not as edgy as I'd hoped; closer to a series of lectures by a university professor on children's literature.
lieslindi's review
3.0
Alison Lurie's collection of essays is entertaining and at times thought-provoking, but mostly her analyses were too Freudian for me. And inconsistent: she says death was absent from children's literature until the 20th century. In context, it's possible she meant absent in the first half of that century, but she's not clear and says this just after mentioning Little Women. People die left and right in Louisa May Alcott, Frances Hodgson Burnett, L.M. Montgomery, and Elizabeth Enright, and even Nancy Drew's mother is dead. Granted, most of the deaths happen off the page, at the very beginning to establish the setting, or to background characters you've never met -- like the Melendys' mother and Nancy's. Beth is an exception, but a glaringly contradictory one.
After, say, 1960, the morbidity rate for mothers rises sharply. A friend of mine lamented the dead mothers in contemporary books for her daughter, and she's right: many Newbery medalists including Voigt and Creech, lots of Joan Aiken, the Penderwicks, the Traveling Pants series, and Harry Potter of course. Probably because all the girl protagonists have Electra complexes.
More about authors than power to the pipsqueaks, but okay.
After, say, 1960, the morbidity rate for mothers rises sharply. A friend of mine lamented the dead mothers in contemporary books for her daughter, and she's right: many Newbery medalists including Voigt and Creech, lots of Joan Aiken, the Penderwicks, the Traveling Pants series, and Harry Potter of course. Probably because all the girl protagonists have Electra complexes.
More about authors than power to the pipsqueaks, but okay.
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