The Arctic in Literature for Children and Young Adults ed. by Heidi Hansson, Maria Lindgren Leavenworth and Anka Ryall (review)

To many readers, the Arctic may appear as a remote and faraway region, but in children's literature, the outermost North looms large. Since the nineteenth century, the Arctic has been marked as a space of adventure and heroism. The race to the North Pole and other expeditions have especially shaped the public image of the Arctic. Adventurous yet often colonial depictions of the Arctic have been adopted into and promoted by children's literature—particularly in countries belonging to or bordering the Arctic Circle. Editors Heidi Hansson, Maria Lindgren Leavenworth, and Anka Ryall present an extensive and highly informative volume on depictions of the Arctic in children's and youth literature, with a focus on Scandinavian, Canadian, and US-American perspectives. By applying contemporary theories on spatial, postcolonial, environmental, and gender-related matters, all contributors to the volume show the significance in analyzing the Arctic landscapes in respect to their political and cultural implications.

In the introduction, Hansson rightly points out the gap in research on the Arctic in children's literature by observing that given an "extensive interest in the environment, in the sense of both location and ecology, the lack of studies concerning children's literature in and about the Arctic is notable" (2). The volume certainly minimizes this gap and covers important subjects related to the Arctic in cultural and political debates. The edited volume is divided into three parts, which focus on "Polar History and Its Transformations," "Indigenous and Localized Arctics," and "Arcticity and Imaginary Arctics." Hansson walks the reader through the major subjects of the field and provides deep insight into fictional constructions of the conceptual and geographical region. By referring to popular cultures, she reminds us that representations of the Arctic often include well-known images, such as Christmas imagery, depictions of polar bears, and simplistic depictions of the life of the Inuit. The introduction serves as a solid framework for the essays that follow, offering readers a thorough overview of polar history in children's literature. One of the most important aspects is the discussion of the history of racist representations of the Indigenous inhabitants of the Arctic Circle. Importantly, Hansson provides discussions on Indigenous writing, which deliver counterimages of Arctic life and address the radical exploitation of Indigenous people. The introduction therefore leaves the reader with a clear understanding that the Arctic has traditionally been a landscape of cultural and political projection, often simplifying an image of permanent winter, in which Western travelers would arrive for competition, adventure, and national honor.

Following the introduction, the first part of the volume is dedicated to "Polar History and Its Transformations," comprising four essays which all fall into the category but address rather different issues. Anka Ryall's article "Polar Icon? Fridtjof Nansen for Children and Young Adults" reviews the masculine images of Nansen as a national hero, who has often been depicted as a "modern reincarnation of the heroic Viking spirit" (29). Ryall examines contemporary novels and graphic narratives that provide subversive readings and "deconstruct the very concept of national polar heroism" (30). Her reading of those books against the backdrop of idealized books about Nansen from the turn of the century makes visible the subversive character of the contemporary reimaginations of Nansen's expeditions. The article is informative and enjoyable to read at the same time, particularly in those passages where Ryall discusses satirical or entertaining rewritings of Nansen, such as the comic satire Fridtjof & Hjalmar, which leaves Nansen secretly defeated by a female explorer. Silje Gaupseth's "An Arctic Tom Sawyer: Vilhjalmur Stefansson and Violet Irwin's Kak" is also a very enjoyable read. The author examines the personal and gender-hierarchal connection of the author-couple Stefansson and Irwin. Gaupseth analyzes the construction of the "educational Arctic" in the book as a tool for "colonial discourse voiced in the novel" (45). In the context of the...