Under Fire: Childhood in the Shadow of War

by Adrienne Kertzer (Contribution by), Anna Letitia Barbauld (Contribution by), Emer O'Sullivan (Contribution by), Eric J. Johnson (Contribution by), Gary Dickson (Contribution by)

Overview

Investigates the effects of war on children and children’s literature.

Under Fire is an eclectic, multidisciplinary collection that explores the representation of war and its aftereffects in children’s books and documentary film. This richly illustrated volume brings together internationally known contributors to examine the ongoing influence of violence and war on children’s literature by studying the childhood experiences of authors writing for children, the children represented in war stories, and the experiences of children who make up the stories’ readership. Under Fire opens timely avenues in literary studies and encourages those who work with young readers to envision children’s studies in new ways.

The first three sections explore war’s effect on children from the Children’s Crusade through World War II, with a special emphasis on the Holocaust. Contributors in these sections pay close attention to the effects of war on the collective memory and consciousness of both children and authors, investigating how these experiences serve as fodder for fantasy and as a justification for the abundance of realism in children’s books. The final section studies in detail children’s books and stories from the world-renowned Cotsen Collection at Princeton University, including C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia series and J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. Dedicated to the memory of Mitzi Myers, Under Fire concludes with a personal essay by Myers, who considers the unexpected and long-reaching effects of children’s literature on her own life.

Under Fire helps readers to understand why matters of life and death have always been at the heart of enduring works for children. Children’s studies scholars and students and teachers of children’s literature will appreciate this multifaceted and intriguing volume.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780814334041
Publisher:	Wayne State University Press
Publication date:	05/01/2008
Series:	Landscapes of Childhood Series
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 9.90(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Elizabeth Goodenough is a lecturer in English at the Residential College of the University of Michigan.

Andrea Immel is the curator of Princeton University’s Cotsen Children’s Library.
Contributors: Gary Dickson, John Gall, Elizabeth Goodenough, M. O. Grenby, Mark Jonathan Harris, Mark A. Heberle, Margaret R. Higonnet, Andrea Immel, Adrienne Kertzer, Kenneth Kidd, U. C. Knoepflmacher, Mitzi Myers, Emer O’Sullivan, Pamela Reynolds, Lore Segal, Naomi Sokoloff, Maria Tatar

Table of Contents

Preface     ix
Introduction   Elizabeth Goodenough   Andrea Immel     1
Hearts and Minds
Storying War: An Overview   Mitzi Myers     19
Massacre of the Innocents? Sacral Violence and the Paradox of the Children's Crusade   Gary Dickson     29
"Surely there is no British boy or girl who has not heard of the battle of Waterloo!" War and Children's Literature in the Age of Napoleon   M. O. Grenby     39
Under Ideological Fire: Illustrated Wartime Propaganda for Children   Eric J. Johnson     59
Shifting Images: Germans in Postwar British Children's Fiction   Emer O'Sullivan     77
Representing Trauma
Baby Terrors   Lore Segal     93
"No safe place to run to": An Interview with Robert Cormier   Mitzi Myers     97
Picturing Trauma in the Great War   Margaret R. Higonnet     115
The Shadow of War: Tolkien, Trauma, Childhood, Fantasy   Mark Heberle     129
The Holocaust in Hindsight
A is for Auschwitz: Psychoanalysis, Trauma Theory, and the "Children's Literature of Atrocity"   Kenneth Kidd     161
The Hansel and Gretel Syndrome: Survivorship Fantasies and Parental Desertion   U. C. Knoepflmacher     185
Gila Almagor's Aviyah:Remembering the Holocaust in Children's Literature   Naomi Sokoloff     197
The Anxiety of Trauma in Children's War Fiction   Adrienne Kertzer     207
Storying Home
A Physician's Take on Ferdinand   John Gall     223
Breaking the Cycle   Mark Jonathan Harris     227
Please Don't Touch My Toys: Material Culture and the Academy   Mitzi Myers     231
"Appointed Journeys": Growing Up with War Stories   Maria Tatar     237
Afterword   Pamela Reynolds     251
"Things by Their Right Names"   John Aikin   Anna Letitia Barbauld     255
Works Cited     259
Contributors     277
Index     281

Editorial Reviews

A interdisciplinary collection, Under Fire draws primarily upon literary criticism and childhood studies, seeking to question how warefare in represented by and for children, how this changes according to time and place and what are, or should be, the purpose of such representations."

Childhood

In the collection of Under Fire, war is read first as a historical event translated into text, but the contributors also explore the stories that emerge from the history for both child readers and the adults around them."

Children\'s Literature Assocaition Quarterly

This anthology marks a critical intervention in the field, and it will no doubt inspire further work within the ever-expanding arena of children's studies."

Lion and the Unicorn