Books Received

Animals and Ourselves: Essays on Connections and Blurred Boundaries. Edited by Kathy Merlock Jackson, Kathy Shepherd Stolley, and Lisa Lyon Payne. McFarland, 2020.

All of the essays in this collection are tied to the burgeoning field of animal studies. Several of the essays, however, also relate to children's literature and culture, including Stacy Hoult-Saros's "Beautiful Cockroaches and Featherless Birds: Anthropomorphism in Books for Latinx Children," Martin Woodside's "Cultivating Conservation: Childhood and Animalhood in the Fiction of Ernest Thompson Seton," and Mark I. West's "Animal/Human Relations in Two Prairie Tales by L. Frank Baum."

Charles Godfrey Leland and His Magical Tales. Edited by Jack Zipes. Wayne State University Press, 2020.

Charles Godfrey Leland made a name for himself as an American folklorist during the second half of the nineteenth century, but his reputation in the field of folklore studies has diminished because he often embellished the folk tales that he collected and published. In this new edited collection of Leland's tales, Jack Zipes argues that Leland's magical stories cannot be considered authentic folk tales, but they still have considerable literary merit. In addition to reprinting a selection of Leland's stories, Zipes provides a scholarly introduction in which he covers Leland's life and writing career.

Creation and Beauty in Tolkien's Catholic Vision. By Michael John Halsall. Lutterworth Press, 2020.

Michael John Halsall draws on his background as a Catholic priest and instructor of philosophy at Allen Hall Seminary in this study of J. R. R. Tolkien's writings. Halsall examines the theological and philosophical themes that run through Tolkien's works. Although Halsall does not focus on Tolkien's stories for children, he does include several passages about The Hobbit.

Young Adult Literature: From Romance to Realism. 4th edition. By Michael Cart. ALA Neal-Schuman, 2021.

In this latest edition of Young Adult Literature, Michael Cart completely updates his classic survey of YA literature. This new edition includes a greatly expanded discussion of multicultural and LGBTQIA+ literature intended for young adult readers.