Cross-Border Bodies: How to Fit When Your Body Does Not

The societal and literary understanding of the non-normative body has evolved throughout history, from monstrous abnormality to corporeal diversity. The material turn adopted in recent years in several research scopes has contributed powerfully to the shift (Nikolajeva 132–33). The emergence of new cross-border bodies in children’s literature results from this change of paradigm.

Bodily borders depend on the pre-existence of a normal body. Power structures configure it through medical discourse, literature, and identity narratives, among others. A range of interrelated bodily markers, such as weight, height, skin tone, sex, or form, is used to judge the bodies. Sameness is the pattern. Therefore, any deviation is noted as abnormal. Normalization processes deny the humanity of different bodies, tagging them as pathological, monstrous, or other. In contrast, cross-border bodies challenge this denial by declaring their humanity without renouncing their non-normative features. This review considers four picture books that address the issue of embodiment and extraordinary bodies. The four texts put into question the borders of what a human being ought to be.

For a long time, deviant bodies suffered from isolation, rejection, and ridicule in spaces such as freak shows. The True Tale of a Giantess exemplifies these circumstances but with significant nuance. The protagonist participates in a Gallery of Wonders, not a freak show, where she is respected and not treated like a monster. As Nikolajeva asserts, “Physical deviation has traditionally been viewed as abnormality, be it anatomy, skin or hair colour, or disfigurement” (140). However, this perspective began to change during the second half of the twentieth century, as advances in medicine led to the understanding that these bodies were as human as any other. In Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring Physical Disability in American Culture and Literature by Rosemarie Garland Thomson, published in 1997 and reprinted in 2017, the term “normate” is coined to address the concern of the normativity-non-normativity binary. Garland defines normate as the privileged stance of a socio-cultural figure whose boundaries are drawn by deviant bodies (8).

The characters in the picture books taken up in this review might be considered non-normate but with some objections, as all of them are white, thin, without disabilities, and living in middle-class contexts in Western countries. The term normate is conditioned by both bodily configurations and cultural capital (Garland-Thomson 8). Thus, these bodies are partially normate.

The picture books in this review fall into two groupings: those that focus on small bodies—I Am Small; The Tiny Tale of Little Pea—and those that focus on large bodies—Daddy Long Legs; The True Tale of a Giantess. All stress the physicality of the body and how it takes up space in the world. One might be tempted to argue that there is no real disruption of the norm in these books, since a size far from the standard is the only deviation rendered. There is no alteration of visible form that can lead to thinking about the dismantling of the characters’ humanity. If these bodies were considered apart from the context of the stories, they would not differ from any normative body. The intent to challenge norms becomes blurred when the diversity appears as a single instance rather than a representation of human difference.

Bodily diversity has increasing visibility in children’s literature, but with limitations: while more texts promote positive non-hegemonic bodies, other divergent bodies, such as fat bodies, are omitted.¹ In her study about the shame associated with body image in children’s literature, Joy Mauldin highlights a tie between negative...