NEWSLETTER

Society for the History of Children and Youth

Children's Literature Association Meeting

Julia Mickenberg, University of Texas at Austin

I attended the 34^th annual conference of the Children’s Literature Association at Christopher Newport University this past June. The theme of the conference was Anniversaries, Histories, and Colonialisms. This theme got me thinking that some people active in the SHCY might like to get involved with the Children’s Literature Association.

While I had a number of meetings that prevented me from attending as many panels as I would have liked, those I did attend were uniformly of high quality. On the first day I went to a standing-room-only 8:00 am session on Psychology in Children’s Literature (the crowd attesting to the usual level of enthusiasm in this group), with an especially engaging paper that made links between Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are and Freud’s narrative of the “Wolf Man” (the paper, by Kenneth Kidd, was entitled “Sendak’s Dream of the Wolves”). Another great panel on Politics and Children’s Literature focused on children’s film and performance, with a provocative paper on Lilo and Stitch (“Queering the Disney Version: Progressive Politics in Disney’s Lilo and Stitch” by Kerry Mockler, as well as a fascinating discussion of child performers by Annette Wannamaker. I also caught an interesting paper by Anna L. Nielsen on popular constructions of girlhood in the 1940s, which drew upon several girls’ series from the time. I unfortunately missed June Cummins’ intriguingly-titled, “You are SO Not Sure of Your Jewish Identity: Contemporary Girls’ Fiction and the Rise of the Kvetchfessional” (part of a panel on contemporary literature). In keeping with the conference theme, there were several panels on historical fiction, and also discussions of how particular issues, such as Japanese Internment or the Holocaust, have been portrayed in children’s literature. Another theme that popped up several times was the idea of the “colonized child” in children’s literature. At a panel on “Maleness,” I heard some more excellent presentations, notably Eric Tribunella’s discussion of Tom Brown’s Schooldays and Michelle Martin’s discussion of an unpublished story by Arna Bontemps, a story she will hopefully bring into print.

I was especially interested in a panel on Modernism in Children’s Literature, which was chaired by Karin Westman (who also gave an excellent overview of the entry points for thinking about both modernism and modernity in relation to children’s literature). I missed two panels that were the talk of the conference: The first was a discussion of the Children’s Studies Program at York University in Toronto. In general, as I could gather, the theme of this panel was how to bring children themselves into the field of children’s and childhood studies.  One scholar, Peter Cumming, even spoke of bringing “child experts” (that is, actual children) into his classes, for example, to talk about a children’s book under discussion. The other hit panel that I missed was on Nonsense literature, with papers by Kevin Shortsleeve, Michael Heyman, and Kathleen Pendlebury.

I was part of a panel with Phil Nel, Katharine Capshaw-Smith and Kevin Shortsleeve on traditions of radical children’s literature. Kate gave a fascinating paper from her new work on Black Nationalism ad children’s literature. There were several panels addressing publishing, the job market, and other aspects of professional development, as well as panels of authors themselves.

This was my third ChLA conference. Each time I have attended these conferences I am struck by the camaraderie and the feeling of welcome; I am also struck by the exciting work being done on children’s literature and media. I’d encourage SHCY members to consider submitting an abstract to organizers of the next conference: meeting next June 12-15 in Normal, Illinois (home of a distinguished children’s literature program), the theme is “Re-imagining Normal.” Proposals for papers and panels are due in January: http://www.english.ilstu.edu/ChLA2008/callforpapers/index.htm