Dust Off the Gold Medal: Rediscovering Children's Literature at the Newbery ed. by Sara L. Schwebel and Jocelyn Van Tuyl (review)

Established in 1922, the Newbery Medal honors the previous year's most distinguished contribution to American literature for children. But, as Sara L. Schwebel and Jocelyn Van Tuyl explain in their introduction to Dust Off the Gold Medal: Rediscovering Children's Literature at the Newbery Centennial, children's literature scholarship on Newbery-winning books is uneven. Roughly one third are largely ignored by both present-day readers and scholars. While some books may be disregarded because they are so racist and/or sexist no one can stand them, others may be ignored because they fall into a kind of time limbo. They are too recent to be "classics," and they are not old enough for scholars to be familiar with them from childhood. This last group is the subject of this collection. Taken together, the essays discuss the historical contexts in which these books were written and selected as winners, with special attention to national, social, and cultural identities (both claimed and imposed). Many of the essays also explore the often subtle ways in which the books challenge stereotypes (even if they also affirm them).

The collection opens with Paul Ringel's "The Dark Frigate (1924) and the Use of Masculinity in Early Newbery Culture." Ringel posits that Frigate's win reflects the seismic shift in children's literature publishing from control by socially conservative male writers and publishers to more progressive female librarians. Although the "bookwomen" favored texts with more female characters, global settings, and literary complexity, Ringel believes they were also anxious to prove themselves to the old guard. Hence, they chose a male-centered adventure story with conservative political views. There are no records of the book-women's discussion when they chose The Dark Frigate, so it is impossible to know for sure what their motives were. But Ringel does raise an intriguing possibility.

In "Punching Up, Punching Down: Anticolonial Resistance and Brahmanical Ideologies in Gay-Neck: The Story of a Pigeon (1928)," Poushali Bhadury explores both the subversive and hegemonic aspects of this book. Author Dhan Gopal Mukerji is honored as "the first author of Asian Indian ancestry who successfully wrote for American audiences about Indian life" (34) and Gay-Neck is now garnering attention "as an early, noteworthy Own Voices text" (47). Indeed, Mukerji significantly leaves British colonizers out of the picture, concentrating instead on India's beautiful landscapes and complex culture. The human protagonist is a wealthy and well-educated Hindu boy who challenges assumptions about poverty-stricken and ignorant Indians. Yet the book also reinforces casteist views and tends to smooth over India's cultural diversities, smooshing them all together into "a homogenous, indivisible Hindu nation" (44). Bhadury concludes that texts like Gay-Neck can be damaging as well as empowering: "As we analyze and celebrate Own Voices literature, then, let us do so with contextual awareness and a critical mindset" (47).

With "Sounding the Broken Note: The Trumpeter of Krakow (1929) and Polish History," Kenneth Kidd delves into the complex ethics involved when an American author writes about non-American history and culture. Author Eric Philbrook Kelly had lived and worked in Poland and identified strongly with Polish culture, and his book, The Trumpeter of Krakow, is loosely based on Polish legend. While the novel did bring Poland and Polish culture to the attention of American readers, Kelly also superimposed a 1920s American mindset onto 1460s Poland. In Trumpeter, Poland is a victim of German and Russian imperialism with German and Russian characters described as stereotypical bad guys. Kidd observes the book was popular with Americans and indeed hailed by them as a symbol of friendship between the two nations. But Trumpeter did not fit with the trends in Polish literature and has never been translated into Polish (though Kelly's "legend" has been used in tourist leaflets). Ultimately, Kidd suggests, Trumpeter represents...