Junior Fiction: A Feminist Critique

"'Books!' cried Little Man on Christmas morning." Of all the presents the Logan children received in the Depression year of 1933, none was prized more highly than books. Mildred D Taylor's Newbery-Award-winning novel of the Logan family, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry (Houghton Mifflin, 1976), is a modern classic. Like the Christmas books it speaks about, it is a literary treasure to be cherished.

Yet, do people cherish books anymore? In a world of television, stereo, and electronic amusement, is anybody still reading? As libraries struggle for operating funds and bookstores try to survive, the prognosis for maintaining reading as a valued cultural skill looks dim.

In spite of this, those of us who are still moved by good prose would probably agree that young people need worthwhile literature now as much as ever, perhaps even more than ever. Yet, we would not necessarily agree on what constitutes worthwhile literature. There are those who hold that literature is—or should be—apolitical, and that teaching is not a function of literature. Yet all literature conveys ideas, and young people, not always possessing the critical awareness to reject an author's values, accept as truth what is subjective. Eloise Greenfield, an exceptional children's author, has stated it well:

Whether in its interpretation of the political realities, or in its attempts to ignore those realities, or in its distortions, or in its advocacy of a different reality, or in its support of the status quo, all art is political and every book carries its author's message.¹

Ideally, authors of children's books, realizing this, would exercise some responsibility and examine the values they are revealing in their stories. Real skill would consist of not merely being able to write well, but it would also mean rejecting stereotypes and affirming the right of all children to find positive reflections of themselves and their lives in literature.

Although this is posed as an ideal, there are current authors who do, in fact, possess such skill. To identify these authors and to inform parents, teachers, librarians, and young people about their books was the goal of two recent studies conducted by Jeanne Bracken and me. Both studies resulted in critically annotated bibliographies published by The Feminist Press. The first, Books for Today's Children, released in 1979, contains recommended picture books for ages four to eight, published from 1972 to 1976. The second, Books for Today's Young Readers (1981), contains recommended junior fiction for ages nine to 14, published from 1977 to 1980. This article focuses on the findings of the second study.

In January, 1980, supported by a grant from the Rockefeller Family Fund, we began a research study of sex-role portrayals in recent fiction for young people ages nine to 14. We modeled our procedures on those used in our earlier picture-book study.² That is, we examined School Library Journal reviews for the period 1977 through 1979, concentrating on the general theme of contemporary realism in fiction. We eliminated nonfiction, science fiction, time and space fantasy, and folk tales. Within the broad general theme of contemporary realism, we focused on several subthemes: girls as independent, assertive protagonists; boys as sensitive, nurturing, noncompetitive characters; friendships between girls and boys; diversity of racial and cultural representation; diversity of family groupings; and diversity of socioeconomic levels. We read every book in the study with concern for readability, credibility, and the existence or avoidance of stereotyping in regard to gender, race, ethnicity, age, class, sexual preference, and physical capability. Our purpose was three-fold:

1. 1. To discover whether, like the picture books junior novels were primarily peopled by white, middle-class, suburban, nuclear families whose members adhered to traditional sex roles;

2. 2. To identify well-written books showing females and males living and coping with situations in ways that challenge traditional sex-role expectations;

3. 3. To identify well-written books that present positive images of a pluralistic society composed of people of color, working-class families, active older women and men, and disabled people.

As reading proceeded, many new titles released in 1980 were added...