The Cambridge Guide to Children's Books in English (review)

Let me admit at once that I am among the 253 contributors from Australia, Canada, East Africa, India, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, New Zealand, Nigeria, Singapore, South Africa, Tasmania, as well as Great Britain and the United States to The Cambridge Guide to Children's Books in English. The contributors represent a wide range of professions: in addition to academics, there are editors, librarians, reviewers, researchers, teachers, writers, and a goodly number of independent scholars, all writing with clarity and authority. This diversity of contributors is reflected in the gratifying diversity of the over 2,500 entries, ranging from A Apple Pie, an 1886 alphabet book designed by the English illustrator Kate Greenaway, to Lisbeth Zwerger (1954-), an award-winning Viennese artist who has illustrated many important children's books in English. Unlike previous reference books put out by British presses, this one goes out of its way to recognize the work in English of authors and illustrators from minorities and from countries other than the United States and Great Britain; poetry is also unusually well represented.

The editor of the Cambridge Guide, Victor Watson, has wisely bracketed the thorny question of the definition of children's literature by declaring his intention "to include authors, or illustrators, or works published in English, believed by the editors to have made a significant impact on young readers anywhere in the world, or to have in some way influenced the production of children's books" (vi). Thus we find entries for works such as Gulliver's Travels and Robinson Crusoe, not originally intended for children but soon popular with them.

In addition, the Cambridge Guide has a wider historical scope than I have found in other reference books of this type, with short entries on early authors such as Aelfric (955?-1020?) and his lively book of Latin and Anglo-Saxon conversation and longer ones on King Arthur and on Welsh mythology and folklore. As well, it pays attention to areas that might be considered peripheral to children's books, not only to a wide range of oral material but to such subjects as "drama, television, comics, children's annuals, adventure game-books, and the growing range of media texts" (vi). At the same time, the coverage of contemporary works is exceptional and as up-to-date as possible—even Harry Potter has his place here.

As well as the short entries, there are a number of substantial ones, such as "bias" (6.5 columns), "critical approaches to children's literature" (6.5 columns), and "fables" (5 columns), often by two or more contributors. These entries are notable for a useful system of cross-references to authors and subjects that have their own entries; short entries may refer to longer ones in the same way. The entry on "collections of children's books," written by Margaret Evans (Loughborough University) and Juliet Partridge (University of Tasmania), is particularly informative and up-to-date. It includes libraries in Australia, New Zealand, and Canada as well as in the United States and Great Britain, and it also notes the growing access to these collections on the World Wide Web.

It is inevitable that a reviewer of such a reference work will detect some omissions, but I find only two that bother me. They are once-popular books that reflect the racism of the U.S. deep South (an area neglected by scholars), Diddie, Dumps and Tot or Plantation Child-Life (1882) by Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle and the Epaminondas series based on folktales, begun in the early 1930s and most recently reworked by Constance Egan (Collins, 1960). Perhaps it is as well that they now be forgotten.

The Cambridge Guide is handsomely illustrated in black and white, and the browser is often rewarded throughout by small delights such as the...