Traces

Trace: The track made by the passage of any person or thing.

To follow Perry Nodelman as editor of a journal is at once a humbling and an exhilarating experience. Nodelman's influential presence in the criticism of young people's texts is well known: from his detailed demonstration of the varieties of ironic relations between words and pictures in picture books (Words About Pictures) to his evolving statements of the characteristics of children's literature as a genre (The Pleasures of Children's Literature) to his recent argument that children's literature simultaneously protects children from adult knowledge and works to teach it to them (The Hidden Adult), Nodelman has produced a body of important and compelling work, which any critic entering the field needs to take into account. The colloquial, conversational voice that he adopts in much of his academic writing has become a signature style, a style that encourages and, indeed, often provokes, debate. It is a style that he also employed as editor of CCL/LCJ in the years since its arrival at the University of Winnipeg. Many of the scholars and critics who have published in the journal since 2004 have written to express their appreciation for his incisive and extensive commentary on early versions of their articles. Editors following Nodelman's tracks inevitably must ask themselves whether they are up to the mark.

But, because Nodelman's contributions have cleared the way to better scholarship in the field, it is also exciting to come after him. In his first CCL/LCJ editorial in Spring 2005, he adamantly refused any simple, nationalistic celebration of Canadian children's texts and he insisted that he, as well as other scholars, be willing to review, rethink, and, even, retract opinions in the light of new information. These are two of the impulses that have shaped the strategic revisioning of the journal as Jeunesse: Young People, Texts, Cultures. As incoming editors, we thank Perry for the work he has done in preparing the ground for this project and for his agreement to serve as a member of the Editorial Advisory Board as we grow into the mandate we're articulating.

Trace: An indication or evidence of the presence or existence of something, or of a former event or condition; a sign, mark.

The next years will be an ongoing process of settling into a new skin. Readers will recognize many of the elements of our former identity in the issue before them. Indeed, editorial work with many of the articles and review essays published in this issue began with the CCL/LCJ editors.

We retain a commitment to publishing articles in both French and English, as the new title of the journal signals. The fact that the French component of the journal has become so important to our understanding of our work is due in large part to the persistent care and detailed attention given by Anne Rusnak to this scholarship during her five years as an Associate Editor of CCL/LCJ. We're pleased that she, too, has joined the Editorial Advisory Board of Jeunesse. Most of our reviews will continue to be essays that discuss a group of texts, with a focus on primary material from Canada and on major scholarly and theoretical work internationally in the fields of young people's texts and cultures. Forums collecting a group of essays, each of which discusses a significant question or keyword from a different perspective, will be featured from time to time, as will occasional articles on important library collections and other resources for researchers and scholars.

In many ways, the skin itself will not appear to be all that new. We've retained many of the design elements of our previous incarnation. The print publication continues to mimic the shape of a picture book for children, and the cover continues to feature objects associated with childhood and youth on a white background. The new Jeunesse logo contains traces of the former CCL/LCJ logo, most obviously in its coloration, but also, and more importantly in the view of the editors, in its broken form lines and its rearrangeable...