AustLit

The close of a century invites both retrospection and prognostication. As a period of transition, it also brings a sense of uncertainty, finality, and apocalypticism. These feelings stem from various events, such as political turmoil, scientific advancements, and social change. As might be expected, literature reflects such changes and the feelings they engender. But perhaps more surprisingly, children's literature is especially sensitive to such matters, and fiction for children often struggles with dark and unpleasant issues. This book examines fin de siécle tensions in 19th- and 20th-century children's literature from around the world.

Each chapter is written by an expert contributor, and the volume ranges over a disparate variety of topics. These include poetry, series books, pacifist fiction, gender issues, religion and literature, eco-criticism, minority experiences, humor and the Holocaust, fantasy and science fiction, and computer culture. In exploring these issues in relation to children's literature, the contributors reveal the shifting nature of our values and the world in which we live. Global in nature, the chapters look at children's literature from such places as Germany, Holland, the United Kingdom, Australia, and the United States. (Amazon)

McGillis offers an insightful review of Clare Bradford's critical text, Reading Race: Aboriginality in Australian Children's Literature, which posits that Bradford's work is crucial in recognizing the 'continual cultural practice of the effacement of Aboriginality' (p.52). McGillis gives an overview of each chapter, briefly referring to the main points of Bradford's analysis including the link between religious tropes and women and children, Aboriginal masculinity in colonial texts and gender representations in contemporary books. McGill posits that it is Bradford's acumen as a 'close reader' that effectivly articulates the more sinister side of Aboriginalism, specifically 'the apparent sympathy of non-Aboriginal for Aboriginal peoples that manifests itself in a paternalistic and appropriating attitude, or as Bradford puts it, "...[T]he warm glow of Aboriginalism conceals its appropriating and controlling strategies" (p.52).