Canon Constitution and Canon Change in Children's Literature ed. by Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer and Anja Müller (review)

Do you compulsively re-curate the Classics section in bookstores? Do you stay up late arguing with strangers on the Internet about the contemporary relevance of Gay-Neck, the Story of a Pigeon? Does the prospect of swapping out a title on your survey course syllabus leave you in a tizzy? Then you may be a canonist, and this book is for you.

Edited by the estimable Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer, professor of German at the University of Tübingen, and Anja Müller, professor of English literature and culture at the University of Siegen (both experienced critics on youth literature canons as well as aspects of the genre), this is a collection of essays stemming from a conference of the same title as the book, hosted by the editors, in Germany. The thirteen contributing scholars (plus Peter Hunt, who contributes a prelude) come from Israel, Denmark, Poland, Australia, Norway, the Netherlands, the UK, the US, and Germany; subject texts range from publication in the eighteenth century to publication in the twenty-first. Like all books in Routledge's Children's Literature and Culture series, it's smartly produced, with excellent front matter, essay notes and sourcing, and a capable index for you to use to remind yourself just which essay again was talking about The Bunyip of Berkeley's Creek.

The result is a nonsystematic but broad look at canonicity that picks the issue up and looks at it from various angles, allowing illumination to shine through the topic. The assemblage fractures the monolithic notion of canons yet also reveals some commonalities in its creation (and in scholars' reactions to it). It's clear right from the introduction by Kümmerling-Meibauer and Müller, which capably covers the facets of discussion on canon, the tension between viewpoints, and the particular nature of its exploration in children's lit, that this is a knowledgeable but also gratifyingly opinionated exploration of the subject, and their acknowledgment that the included essays may sometimes contradict one another foregrounds the thoughtful and strongly argued individual points of view of the following chapters. The result is a collection engaging for those new to the topic, if not to critical analysis of children's literature in general, and also illuminating for veteran laborers in the canon mills.

The recurrence of some themes and motifs is particularly revealing, given the diversity of topics and the diverse foundations on which contributors stand. Many essays' introductions rehearse familiar notions/aspects/dimensions/facts about canonicity in a way that can be a little repetitive, but that also underscores the similarities of where we're starting in these conversations (and therefore proves particularly informative for readers new to this particular field of critical battle). The pragmatic lure of canons is clear throughout, especially in the section devoted to the canon and national identity, but also in several other places, such as Erica Hateley's essay about Australian book award committees and picture books. The tacit winner in the good old canon wars, referred to with understandable frequency within the volume, seems to be the notion of canon itself: there may be arguments about what goes in it, but if the subjects here are to serve as measure, belief in the utility and importance of the canon as tool is widespread and unflagging. (It slices! It dices! It signals your culture's values!)

That exploration of national issues may be the book's dominant overall contribution. To this American reader working mostly in American canons, it's fascinating to see the work of countries consciously constructing national identity via youth literature canon. While US canons reveal many things about national identity and self-perception, nationalism is rarely an explicit criterion now that we're well past our Young Nation years; indeed, our canon creators are often willfully blind to how nation-specific the selections are and nation-specific the values they celebrate, even...