In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

  • Booklog
  • Leonard S. Marcus

With this issue, The Lion and the Unicorn opens a new department of review and criticism, Booklog. By way of beginning at the beginning, and more especially of providing reviewers with a set of general guidelines, we would like here to set down our main plans. The journal is always looking for new contributors, and we hope that the following will be taken by those interested in doing so as an invitation to send us specific proposals for future issues of Booklog.

We will first of all review significant new critical, historical, and reference works on children's literature; and, along with these, books of related interest from the fields of social history, developmental psychology, folklore studies, the history of art, and others.

Because the scholarly study of children's literature is international in scope, we will from time to time reprint in translation book reviews of special interest that first appeared in journals from Germany, France, and elsewhere.

It is important to us to review not just books about children's literature but some children's books as well. We have we think identified a number of unfilled or inadequately filled special needs that Booklog is well suited to looking after.

One such special category of children's books is the so-called "forgotten classics," books of any period that are not today widely known or read, but which deserve to be. As publishers withdraw their traditional commitment to their backlists, the list of the forgotten is only likely to grow. We hope to keep some of these books from falling by the wayside, and in doing so, to encourage their reissue.

A variety of small presses publish children's books of one kind or another. Small presses may take on controversial, offbeat, or otherwise unconventional material that the mainstream houses would be careful to avoid. They may set for themselves more craftsmanlike standards of bookmaking than the trade publishers would care to, or could afford to sustain. Because such books receive little critical notice elsewhere, Booklog will review the best work of the small press scene.

While all new children's books are "of our time," some speak directly to contemporary issues of social importance. As a way of gaining the fullest possible perspective on books of this kind, we plan to publish group reviews in which significant children's books available on, for example, the issue of nuclear war and disarmament, will be discussed together. [End Page 89]

Occasionally, a children's book, on a critical work in the field, comes along that is provocative enough by the sheer originality of its point of view to warrant not just a single well thought out review but a more extensive discussion in which various conflicting interpretations can be thoroughly represented and explored. Accordingly, we plan to experiment with a series of "Tri-alogue Reviews" —recorded conversations, printed in interview format, in which three critics meeting together will exchange, and possibly even change, their thoughts about a recent work of this kind.

We will from time to time also review exhibitions on children's literature, illustration, and related matters. [End Page 90]

...

pdf

Share