Abstracts

Abstracts Isaac Bashevis Singer's Image of Himself as a Child Rarely has an author left as comprehensive an image of his culture as has Isaac Bashevis Singer. Rarely has an author left as vivid an image of childhood as he has, and rarely has an author's work been as globally praised. A good deal of what Singer has written about in his fourteen books for children is autobiographical. In surveying his cultural and familial roots as he portrays them in his tales, this essay asks whether foreshadowings of his commitment to writing, as well as some of the characteristics of his storytelling ability, can be found. The answer is yes. Alida Allison Department of English and Comparative Literature San Diego State University San Diego, CA 92182 Two Newbery Winners Not in the Child's Image: Hittv. Her First Hundred Years and Miss Hickory Unlike many other doll stories, the two narratives considered here, both Newbery Medal winners—Rachel Field's Hitty. Her First Hundred Years (1929) and Carolyn Sherwin Bailey's Miss Hickory (1946) —ask child readers to respond to protagonists not in their own image: animated adult female dolls. In doing so these texts manage to project two quite different models of the female alone in the world: one developing a successful independent subjectivity; the other partaking of the "feminine mystique" in its merging with nature. This paper both examines the formal persuasive devices in these stories and speculates about cultural intertexuality in the Newbery Medal Committee's choices for 1930 and 1947. Lois R. Kuznets Department of English and Comparative Literature San Diego State University San Diego, CA 92182 333 Repetitions: Oral and Written Story "The Fisherman and His Wife" Roderick McGillis Department of English University of Calgary Calgary, Alberta T2N 1N4 Canada The Invisible Child in the Works of Tormod Haugen By using the metaphor of the invisible child, Tormod Haugen, the 1990 recipient of the Hans Christian Andersen Medal, attempts to make visible adults' and society's disregard for the child's individuality and integrity, and the oppression of the child's emotional needs. Eva-Maria Metcalf Department of Modern Languages Hamline University St. Paul, MN 55104 334 ...