From School Library Journal
An eminent Canadian scholar and children's book author offers a dense, wide-ranging attempt to define children's literature. Nodelman explores what he sees as "a fatal contradiction at [the] heart" of texts intended for children. He describes children's literature as belonging to a genre, unlike any other in literature, defined by its audience. Yet he notes that children's books are produced, distributed, analyzed, and purchased by adults, who construct their own varying images of childhood. He has chosen six texts as case studies: Maria Edgeworth's "The Purple Jar," Lewis Carroll's
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Hugh Lofting's
Doctor Dolittle, Beverly Cleary's
Henry Huggins, Ezra Jack Keats's
The Snowy Day, and Virginia Hamilton's
Plain City. His provocative discussion engages and synthesizes many serious works of contemporary scholarship, both inside and outside the field of children's literature, from critics as diverse as Jacques Lacan, Edward Said, and John Rowe Townsend. This major theoretical study, the capstone of a long and distinguished career, by an author who relishes the complexity and ambiguity he finds inherent in books intended for children, belongs in all academic libraries, as well as large public library collections.—
Margaret A. Chang, Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, North Adams Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
Review
Perry Nodelman is a leading scholar of children’s literature and The Hidden Adult is arguably his magnum opus.
(Beverly Lyon Clark, author of
Kiddie Lit: The Cultural Construction of Children’s Literature in America 2008)
A 'must' for any collection catering to librarians or any studying children's literature, especially at the college level.
(
Midwest Book Review 2009)
Without question essential reading for professionals of all stripes engaged in the study of children's literature.
(
BCCB, The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books 2009)
Drawing on his deep understanding of literary scholarship, postmodern theory, and children's literature for this learned work, Nodelman builds extensive arguments informed by philosophy, psychology, and culture studies as well as literary criticism. Highly recommended.
(
Choice 2009)
The capstone of a long and distinguished career, by an author who relishes the complexity and ambiguity he finds inherent in books intended for children.
(
School Library Journal 2010)
The Hidden Adult is ground breaking; it will inform the study of children's literature for a long time to come.
(
Children's Literature )
This is a massively important book. Go buy it.
(Peter Hunt
Children's Literature Association Quarterly )
It is without question essential reading for professionals of all stripes engaged in the study of children's literature.
(
Professional Connections: Resources for Teachers and Librarians )
Orbiting around children and their books are hundreds of academic books and courses, puzzling out what children’s literature is, and what it does, and how it works. A lot has been thought and written about this (some good, some bad) – and Perry Nodelman’s brilliantly comprehensive and accessible analysis pulls it all together. No need to keep re-inventing the wheel of defining children, children’s books, response, literature, value, or why and how we talk about these books... it’s all here. This book shows the kind of knowledge that I only wish I had – and it’s a model of readability and generosity of spirit. Anyone who wants to know what has been thought about children and books – from the absolutely essential to the rather strange – could not find a better place to start.
(Peter Hunt
Books For Keeps, The Children's Book Magazine Online )
