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Canadian Children's Literature: a paper call
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From: Perry Nodelman <nodelman>
Date: Mon, 05 Feb 1996 14:21 -0600 (CST)
What follows is a paper call for a special issue of the journal Canadian Children's Literature that I'm guest editing. If anyone in the CCBC community might be interested in contributing, I'd be happy to answer all queries. I'm interested both in Canadian contributors with knowledge of the material and Americans and others who've read some Canadian children's books and have an interest in the topic. Is the question of a Canadian author's citzenship a signficant factor in how American libraries order children's books? (As the Canadian author of children's novels published in the United States, I'd love to know that personally.) Also, does anyone know of someone I might approach who doesn't subscribe to this list? Addresses of other listservs where I might also post this paper call? Please feel free to pass the paper call on to anyone who might find it interesting. I'd probably need solid drafts of articles by the end of August--the issue is to be published in 1997.
________________________________________________
What's Canadian about Canadian Children's Literature?
In 1975, when the first issue of Canadian Children's Literature appeared, there might well have been some doubt about whether the topic identified by its title actually warranted a journal. There simply weren't all that many books in existence that could safely be identified as Canadian Children's Literature. Twenty years later, in part because of the existence of the journal itself, the situation is different. There now exists an impressive body of books for children identified as Canadian--published by firms with Canadian addresses and/or written by people who make some claim to being Canadian. We can take pride in the fact that a variety of Canadian children's books are read widely and admired widely, not only in Canada but internationally.
It's the international success of these books that makes the question proposed for this special issue of Canadian Children's Literature so relevant. If children and children's literature experts around the world find it so easy to enjoy and admire Canadian books, is there actually anything especially or uniquely Canadian about them?
We are looking for articles that explore answers to this question from a number of different angles:
--considerations of whether or not it's possible to identify specific children's books as Canadian rather than American or British or French or Swedish. If it is, can the difference be accounted for merely in terms of the specific geography and culture being described, or are there distinctive features of Canadian writing for children? If it isn't: what then allows us to identify a book as Canadian? The author's address or citizenship? The publisher's address? Is it significant that we make such identifications at all? Should Canadian children be specifically encouraged to read Canadian children's books? Why or why not?
--analyses of specific texts or groups of texts in terms of theories of Canadian national identity such as those developed by Northrop Frye, Margaret Atwood, and Gaile McGregor. Do texts written for children confirm these theories, or suggest their limitations?
--attempts to develop new theoretical frameworks specifically for identifying or analysing the Canadian-ness of Canadian children's books.
--explorations of regional considerations in relation to national ones. Do children's books produced on the prairies share characteristics that make them different as a group from books produced in the maritimes? Do the prairies books and the maritimes books have common characteristics that identify them as Canadian? We are especially interested in articles that explore these questions in terms of the children's literature of Quebec.
--the distinctness of Canadian children's literature in the context of post-colonial theory.
--considerations of economic, political and sociological factors that shape Canadian children's literature. Who decides what gets published or stocked in bookstores or purchased for libraries? To what degree are decisions about what gets published in Canada affected by the potential markets elsewhere? By trends in education? By matter (such as multiculturalism or aboriginal identity) of special importance in the Canadian context? How do matters such as these work to shape the style and the content of specific Canadian children's books?
Queries or articles on these and related topics should be submitted to the guest editor:
Perry Nodelman Professor of English University of Winnipeg Winnipeg MB R3L 1V9
PHONE: 204x6?61 FAX: 204E3Y30 E-MAIL: perry.nodelman at uwinnipeg.ca
Received on Mon 05 Feb 1996 02:21:00 PM CST
Date: Mon, 05 Feb 1996 14:21 -0600 (CST)
What follows is a paper call for a special issue of the journal Canadian Children's Literature that I'm guest editing. If anyone in the CCBC community might be interested in contributing, I'd be happy to answer all queries. I'm interested both in Canadian contributors with knowledge of the material and Americans and others who've read some Canadian children's books and have an interest in the topic. Is the question of a Canadian author's citzenship a signficant factor in how American libraries order children's books? (As the Canadian author of children's novels published in the United States, I'd love to know that personally.) Also, does anyone know of someone I might approach who doesn't subscribe to this list? Addresses of other listservs where I might also post this paper call? Please feel free to pass the paper call on to anyone who might find it interesting. I'd probably need solid drafts of articles by the end of August--the issue is to be published in 1997.
________________________________________________
What's Canadian about Canadian Children's Literature?
In 1975, when the first issue of Canadian Children's Literature appeared, there might well have been some doubt about whether the topic identified by its title actually warranted a journal. There simply weren't all that many books in existence that could safely be identified as Canadian Children's Literature. Twenty years later, in part because of the existence of the journal itself, the situation is different. There now exists an impressive body of books for children identified as Canadian--published by firms with Canadian addresses and/or written by people who make some claim to being Canadian. We can take pride in the fact that a variety of Canadian children's books are read widely and admired widely, not only in Canada but internationally.
It's the international success of these books that makes the question proposed for this special issue of Canadian Children's Literature so relevant. If children and children's literature experts around the world find it so easy to enjoy and admire Canadian books, is there actually anything especially or uniquely Canadian about them?
We are looking for articles that explore answers to this question from a number of different angles:
--considerations of whether or not it's possible to identify specific children's books as Canadian rather than American or British or French or Swedish. If it is, can the difference be accounted for merely in terms of the specific geography and culture being described, or are there distinctive features of Canadian writing for children? If it isn't: what then allows us to identify a book as Canadian? The author's address or citizenship? The publisher's address? Is it significant that we make such identifications at all? Should Canadian children be specifically encouraged to read Canadian children's books? Why or why not?
--analyses of specific texts or groups of texts in terms of theories of Canadian national identity such as those developed by Northrop Frye, Margaret Atwood, and Gaile McGregor. Do texts written for children confirm these theories, or suggest their limitations?
--attempts to develop new theoretical frameworks specifically for identifying or analysing the Canadian-ness of Canadian children's books.
--explorations of regional considerations in relation to national ones. Do children's books produced on the prairies share characteristics that make them different as a group from books produced in the maritimes? Do the prairies books and the maritimes books have common characteristics that identify them as Canadian? We are especially interested in articles that explore these questions in terms of the children's literature of Quebec.
--the distinctness of Canadian children's literature in the context of post-colonial theory.
--considerations of economic, political and sociological factors that shape Canadian children's literature. Who decides what gets published or stocked in bookstores or purchased for libraries? To what degree are decisions about what gets published in Canada affected by the potential markets elsewhere? By trends in education? By matter (such as multiculturalism or aboriginal identity) of special importance in the Canadian context? How do matters such as these work to shape the style and the content of specific Canadian children's books?
Queries or articles on these and related topics should be submitted to the guest editor:
Perry Nodelman Professor of English University of Winnipeg Winnipeg MB R3L 1V9
PHONE: 204x6?61 FAX: 204E3Y30 E-MAIL: perry.nodelman at uwinnipeg.ca
Received on Mon 05 Feb 1996 02:21:00 PM CST
