Nursery Realms: Children in the Worlds of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror (review)

Regular Feature | Book Reviews the book's greatest assets. While he hoped to avoid academic or simplistic extremes in his analysis, it is an attempt that is only partially successful. Some ofDale's interpretations ofthe underlying influences on the various comics are a bit contrived, and violate his own desire to avoid overanalyzing his subject. This is a minor quibble. The book functions best as an act of devotion from a dedicated fan of slapstick rather than a treatise on the lives of the stars behind the medium. Dale's unpretentious writing style and passion for slapstick make Comedy is a Man in Trouble a delightful reading experience . So find a comfortable chair, open the book and revel in the joyous anarchy that is cinematic slapstick. You might find yourself itching for a weekend movie marathon of Chaplin, the Marx Brothers, Jerry Lewis, and even Jim Carrey. It is in that setting where Dale's subject and insight come alive. Sometimes, an exploding cigar is only an exploding cigar, and it is best just to sit back and revel in the madness, a madness we understand all too well. Brad Duren Oklahoma Panhandle State University Uriah768@aol.com Gary Westfahl and George Slusser, editors. Nursery Realms: Children in the Worlds of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror. University of Georgia Press, 1999. 223 pages; $20.00 paper. Bold Statement In the introduction to this collection of essays on the place of children in genre studies, the editors posit that "children are central to any study of science fiction, fantasy, and horror." This, at first, would seem a bold statement because any claim of voice for a specific subaltern group as "central" to a literary study would indicate a form of privilege that overreaches in both expectation and benefit. Quickly and astutely, however, this book makes its case that "children" transcend a simple classification as a subaltern group ofculture and society, placing them more in the context of a "genesis " site for mankind's wonder, fear and imagination. Constructed in three parts, the collection traces the place of children in both literary and cinematic works that define both the "canon" of sci-fi, fantasy and horror and the more obscure works of these genres. The effectiveness of the work lays in the common thread that ties these essays together (something the editors must be consciously aware of), a need in mankind to understand our origins to understand our future. Part I, titled "Fantastic Children," sets up this argument by exploring in broad terms the connections ofchildren in genre studies . The most important essay in this section is "The Humpty Dumpty Effect, orWas the Old Egg ReallyAll ItWas Cracked Up to Be" by Frances Deutsch Louis. Centering her discussion on Nancy Kress's "The Prince of Morning Bells," Louis argues that children can essentially be "defined as a lack of context." The site that a child occupies in the narrative story becomes a point of tabula rasa for the human condition, a site where one can gaze back on the loss of innocence that comes with experience and knowledge and yet not mourn for that loss at the same time. The "Humpty Dumpty" effect is thus a metaphor for connection, a unifying thread between past, present and future, which finds the child the fulcrum of understanding. Gary Kern's essay "The Triumph of the Teen Prop" echoes this assertion by stating forcefully that the recent evolution of genre studies on children has allowed scholars as adults to recognize the fact that we can indeed learn from children. After this initial section sets the argument, the second and third sections further delineate this concept in more direct analysis of the differing works of the genre. Part II deals exclusively with science fiction, as this area offers the most potent examples ofthe "past, present andfuture" threads establishedin PartI. Editor George Slusser's "The Forever Child" argues persuasively that the image of the child has evolved dramatically from the canonized works of Heinlein, Bradbury and others from mere archetypes to more complex universal metaphors for self, utilizing Orson Scott's "Card's Ender's Game" as a prime example ofthe child as principle site for mankind...