"We Can Stil Hop"

Bridges for the Young: The Fiction of Katherine Paterson, ed. M. Sarah Smedman and Joel Chaston. Lanham, MD and Oxford: The Children's Literature Association and Scarecrow P, 2003.

In 1993, the Children's Literature Association and Scarecrow Press published Such a Simple Little Tale, a collection of essays on L. M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables. Montgomery's novel was chosen as the subject for this first joint publishing venture because no other novel had been discussed in the major journals in the field of children's literature as often as Anne. Since then, other volumes have been published by ChLA and Scarecrow. This 2003 collaboration focuses on another author who, like Montgomery, has been the subject of a substantial amount of commentary and criticism. Twice the winner of the Newbery Medal, twice recipient of the National Book Award, and honoree as well for the Hans Christian Andersen Award and the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction, among many other recognitions, Katherine Paterson and her numerous well-respected works for children have for many years been featured at children's literature conferences. In 1994, Paterson received the Children's Literature Association's Phoenix Award for Of Nightingales That Weep and made a memorable appearance at the Association's annual meeting in Springfield, Missouri; whole panels devoted to her work also have been sponsored regularly at ChLA conferences, and with very few exceptions, scholars have presented research on her oeuvre every one of the last fifteen years. Few other authors have been the subject of such continuous and positive scholarly attention.

Edited by M. Sarah Smedman and Joel Chaston, Bridges for the Young brings together sixteen essays spanning a twenty-year period from 1983 to 2003. Some of these essays previously appeared in such journals as The Lion and the Unicorn, the Children's Literature Association Quarterly, and Children's Literature in Education. Other contributions are original to the volume. The essays consider, among other topics, Paterson's narrative strategies, her allusions to a wealth of literary, artistic, and musical texts, and, naturally, given the Christian foundation of her work, her theology. Bridges for the Young will be a useful volume to have on hand and should inspire scholars to read, reread, and continue to write about this important contemporary author.

The essays are organized according to approach. Part one, the most theoretical section in the volume, is titled "Bridges to the Reader: Narratology and Reader Response." Smedman's introduction to Paterson's themes in "'A Good Oyster': Story and Meaning in Jacob Have I Loved" opens the section. Next, Maria Nikolajeva's essay on "The Art of Self-Deceit: Narrative Strategies in Katherine Paterson's Novels" argues that "the complexity of her works reflects the general transition of contemporary children's fiction toward more elaborate aesthetic forms which renders invalid the perception of children's literature as simple" (18–19), and concludes that in a number of Paterson's novels, "the self-deceiving child is reluctant to verbalize the suppressed desires, rather preferring to disguise them in images" (37). In "Feminist Dialogics in Katherine Paterson's Novels," which draws on the theories of Mikhail Bakhtin, Roberta Seelinger Trites asserts that "Paterson's feminist novels," including The Great Gilly Hopkins, Jacob Have I Loved, and Lyddie, "often seem to contain mixed messages about feminism" (41). The final essay in the section, Nancy Huse's "Katherine Paterson's Ultimate Realism," which incorporates the theories of George Lukacs, notes that Paterson's writings "combine the accuracy and literal truthfulness expected of realism with another kind of power usually associated with ethics and religion" (53), and that her work is "not less truthful because it affirms values as well as offering verifiable historical and social details" (54).

Part two, "Bridges to Literary Worlds: Intertextuality and Literacy," begins with Chaston's "Pine Groves and Pumpkin Patches: Katherine Paterson's 'Secret Gardens,'" an essay originally presented in part at the 1994 Children's Literature Association meeting, which usefully traces Paterson's...