The Crossover Novel. Contemporary Children's Fiction and Its Adult Readership (review)

"Why did so many adult readers turn to reading children's fiction?" This is the question that Rachel Falconer sets out to tackle with the tools of poststructuralist and psychoanalytical literary theory and by drawing on sociological and historical models. The result is a thorough and compelling analysis of the phenomenon commonly referred to as "crossover fiction," "all-age," or "kiddultliterature." The first chapter gives a survey of this phenomenon in Great Britain published in the millennial decade (1997-2007) as reflected by the book market, the use of books in other media, and by political and social practices. Looking back at the reception of A. A. Milne, Beatrix Potter, Lewis Carroll, J. M. Barrie, Roald Dahl, or J. R. R. Tolkien, Falconer demonstrates that this hybridization of children's and adult fiction has a long tradition. She interprets cross-reading as a means for adults to playfully transcend their ascribed identity. Chapters 2 to 7 offer close readings of recent crossover novels. Falconer stresses the cathartic effect of reading practices that are characterized by empathy and identification with the hero and the vicarious experience of border crossings. In J. K. Rowling's "Harry Potter" series, for example, she analyzes the opposing motives of lightness and death; in David Almond's "Clay" the topic of birth and creation. She reads Philip Pullman's coming-of-age trilogy "His Dark Materials" as a fantasy bildungsroman and sees the power of imagination at work as a protective force against death and abjection in Geraldine McCaughrean's The White Darkness.

Falconer's in-depth study draws on an impressively wide range of sources, including book reviews from various media, governmental reports, statistical surveys, interviews, and Internet fan-sites. Engaging with the most current social and literary debates on the highest academic level, Falconer redeems the pledge she makes in the preface: "This study will, I hope, contribute to the growing body of work which considers children's literature as literature" (p.10).