Textual Transformations in Children’s Literature: Adaptations, Translations, Reconsiderations ed. by Benjamin Lefebvre (review)

There are two primary reasons why a book-length study of adaptation theory and children’s literature is long overdue. First, in the wake of Linda Hutcheon’s Theory of Adaptation (2006), other literary scholars have jettisoned fidelity criticism, a stance that rates the success of an adaptation based on its ostensible fidelity to an Ur-text. Second, and perhaps what is most surprising about this critical absence in our own discourse, children’s literature scholars engage constantly with adaptation theory, even if we do not realize it. When we talk about fairy tales, compare illustrated editions, consider changing representations of gender, race, or sexuality, engage with non-print media and translated texts, or sadden students by “breaking the Disney spell,” we are talking about adaptation.

Textual Transformations in Children’s Literature begins developing a methodology for children’s literature that, as editor Benjamin Lefebvre puts it, allows us to have productive discussions about the “the wide applicability of texts for young people in the twenty-first century” (6). These eleven essays recognize how in children’s culture, “textual transformations have for a long time been the norm rather than the exception, and the industries that support adaptations, abridgments, and censored editions of children’s texts are driven at once by financial, artistic, and ideological considerations” (2). This collection demonstrates that despite what the lack of critical attention might suggest, adaptations of children’s literature are ubiquitous, and studying these textural transformations will help us to better understand the “generic, pedagogical, and ideological underpinnings that drive both the process and the product” (2).

Textual Transformations implies that children’s literature scholars may fail to engage with adaptation criticism due to a limited vocabulary for this theoretical approach within our field. Too often, critics interchangeably use terms like adapt, appropriate, abridge, allude, influence, reference, remake, translate, parody, mash-up, and tribute—and in regard to sequels and series, no less. These cogent essays explain how understanding such differences alter the potential for interpreting a narrative, character, ideology, or construction. For instance, Maria Nikolajeva’s superb contribution, “Beyond Happily Ever After: The Aesthetic Dilemma of Multivolume Fiction for Children,” closely observes key terms from adaptation studies including “series,” “sequel,” “prequel,” “cycle,” “interquel,” “midquel,” and “pseudoquel” as they relate specifically to children’s literature. Nikolajeva demonstrates the need to apply these terms with care, since doing so enables us to better recognize the “aesthetic—or artistic—aspects of multivolume fiction for children” and the strong ideological and sociopolitical moments behind this phenomenon (197). She turns to recent extensions of classics—The Willows in Winter (1993), Peter Pan in Scarlet (2006), Before Green Gables (2008), Return to the Hundred Acre Wood (2009)—in order to explore questions of authorship, control, power, and aesthetics. This discussion alone makes Textual Transformations an essential addition to both personal and university libraries.

Nikolajeva is in great company. Chapter after chapter demonstrates how a clearer understanding of adaptation theory furthers our understanding of even our most familiar texts. For instance, despite the recent critical attention surrounding the centenary of Anne of Green Gables (1908), this collection showcases refreshing ways of thinking about this classic. Emily Somers discusses Akage no An (1979), Isao Takahata’s anime version of Anne; by considering how the Canadian novel was adapted for Japanese television, Somers confirms that “the genre of the adaptation determines … the way that a text is transformed into and performed in its new situational framework” (156). Andrea McKenzie surveys fourteen international Anne book covers to explore how audiences across decades and countries interact with the different “Annes” illustrators have created. For instance, McKenzie compares a 1956 Polish cover with a 2001 Palestinian one to demonstrate “Anne’s power in the aftermath of war” (143). Whereas the former depicts a waiflike and vulnerable Anne that “recalls a displaced post-WWII orphan, journeying alone with few possessions into the unknown” (144), the latter portrays a vigorous and joyous Anne who “carries an active, gentle promise...