Irish Children's Writers and Illustrators 1986-2006: A Selection of Essays (review)

This book is an important milestone in Irish criticism, one of a number of critical works that in the last decade have begun to acknowledge children's affairs and children's literature as legitimate subjects of study. It brings together critical essays on Irish children's writers from a series published in Inis: The Children's Books Ireland Magazine in the period 2001–04. For a long time, Inis was the only Irish vehicle to promote and assess children's books. Under the joint editorship of Valerie Coghlan and Siobán Parkinson it invigorated and enriched debate with some sparkling commissioned articles and reviews. The editors have presided over a magazine marked by excellent production values. In their introduction, they tell us that their intention is to represent "a snapshot of excellence in Irish children's literature in English at the turn of the 21st century," a time when local publishing still impacted significantly on the Irish children's book trade. They devote a separate essay to each of thirteen writers who are Irish by birth, background or affiliation, and their essayists have updated the original articles to take account of recent work.

Who, then, in the editors' and essayists' opinion, inhabit the realm of writerly and illustration excellence? Among the chosen who have probably secured the widest reputation outside Ireland are three: Kate Thompson, whose Guardian children's fiction prize and Whitbread children's bookof the-year prize consolidated her reputation in Britain; Eoin Colfer, whose Artemis Fowl series sold eight million copies in multiple translations; and Matthew Sweeney, who has made his home in Britain. Others who are consolidating their reputations abroad are illustrator P. J. Lynch and novelist Siobhán Parkinson (the latter is not only editor but also the subject of an essay). Well known too are writer/illustrator Marie-Louise Fitzpatrick, the prolific Sam McBratney, best known for his stories for younger readers; Martin Waddell/Catherine Sefton, winner of the Hans Christian Andersen award; and illustrator Niamh Sharkey. Now that Collins publishing has taken up Maeve Friel, her work has probably entered British schools' radar. Perhaps less established outside the Irish context are historical novelists Elizabeth O'Hara, Gerard Whelan, and contemporary realist Mark O'Sullivan.

Since this book contains only articles published in 2001–04, it does not evaluate younger writers who are beginning to make an impact in the Irish context such as Oisin McGann or Conor Kostick, for example. There are other notable exclusions: historical novelist Marita Conlon-McKenna, who has enjoyed enormous international popularity, is absent: her book on the traumatic famine in 1840s Ireland, Under the Hawthorn Tree, is a sanctioned text in German schools. Neither did Aubrey Flegg or Roddy Doyle, for example, make the cut. Excellence is a quality that is difficult to define in the abstract but can (though not always) be unmistakable on the page. Depending on the critic, here it is seen to emerge in a writer's/illustrator's themes; in narrative form; revelations about identity; or writerly self-consciousness. One senses, in some cases, however, that these criteria are givens, and therefore require no defence.

At their best, these essays are critical, sensitive, and insightful. Robert Dunbar's wide-ranging studies bring his mature judgment to bear on the work of Sweeney and Thompson. Celia Keenan, who has elsewhere explored in detail how Irish writers modify their subject matter and forms to take account of the imperatives of international markets, contributes two forthright, informed essays—on Friel and on Colfer. Valerie Coghlan temporarily lays aside editorial duties to offer nuanced close readings of Lynch's visual texts, and John Short focuses also on the visual—in Sharkey's work. Ní Bhroin expertly marshals the resources of a postcolonialism to reveal the strengths of O'Hara's narratives of personal and national identity. A. J. Piesse leads readers to intelligent interpretations...