Books Received

American Environmental Fiction, 1782–1847. By Matthew Wynn Sivils. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2014.

Much of this study is focused on the environmental writings of the American Transcendentalists, such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. However, Matthew Wynn Sivils devotes a substantial chapter to “Juvenile Environmental Literature,” in which he examines how nature is portrayed in the works of Samuel Griswold Goodrich, more commonly known as Peter Parley.

Audacious Kids: The Classic American Children’s Story. 2nd ed. By Jerry Griswold. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014.

Originally published in 1992, this scholarly work covers twelve classic American children’s novels, including The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Little Women, and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Jerry Griswold pays particular attention to the American motifs and themes that run through these stories. In this revised edition, he has updated the text, added a new preface and introduction, and expanded the bibliography.

Creating Books for the Young in the New South Africa: Essays on Authors and Illustrators of Children’s and Young Adult Literature. Edited by Barbara A. Lehman, Jay Heale, Anne Hill, Thomas van der Walt, and Magdel Vorster. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2014.

The editors of this volume bring together twenty-nine essays on children’s books that have appeared since the political and cultural transformation of South Africa began in 1994. The book also includes a foreword by Elwyn Jenkins and an afterword by Beverley Naidoo.

Laura Ingalls Wilder: American Writer on the Prairie. By Sally Ketcham. New York: Routledge, 2014.

This book is part of the Routledge Historical Americans series. Like the other volumes in the series, it begins with a brief biographical overview, with the remainder of the book featuring documents related to Wilder’s life and writings. These include a 1918 interview with the author, a biographical sketch of her daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, and a speech Wilder delivered in 1936.

Told Again. By Walter de la Mare. Introduction by Philip Pullman. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015.

Part of Princeton University Press’s Oddly Modern Fairy Tales series, this new edition of Told Again (first published in 1927) introduces contemporary readers to de la Mare’s poetic retellings of nineteen traditional fairy tales.