This work demonstrates that the two distinct worlds, politics and children's literature, can and should come together and when they do, each illuminates the other. The history of children's literature throws up numerous instances of convergence, as in imperialism and the 19th century novel, or back further, the ideas of Rousseau as they permeate books by Thomas Day and Richard and Maria Edgeworth. Children's literature is often one of the first things to censor, building on the idea that some ideas harm the young. It is also one of the most immediate fields for the detection of ideological – political, religious and moral – indoctrination and subtext. At times of political crisis or social and cultural change, these factors operate more strongly than ever. These are now issues of interest to current library and information professionals, as well as educationalists and parents, in an age of the internet.
Another factor often met with in children's literature is the tendency to criticize any attempt to indoctrinate or manipulate storylines or characterization in the interests of “getting a message across” – perhaps about racial harmony, sexual equality, human rights, even the power of the liberal imagination. In “rites of passage” stories, this is often regarded as critical to growing up. Such issues also appear in many forms, objective or doctrinaire, in the span of information books published for children over the last 200 or so years. With this context, it is a pleasure to review Julia Mickenberg's study of the American left and what they wrote, illustrated, published and sold to children, schools and libraries during the period between the 1920s and 1950s, often a neglected period and so far too long a neglected viewpoint.
This is a readable and conscientiously‐researched monograph designed for the scholar, cultural historian, sociologist and literary critic rather than for the busy children's or school librarian, although what it says is clear and has relevance far beyond its chosen period. By arguing that the political played and plays an important role in children's literature, Mickenberg, University of Texas, focuses on the Cold War and the work of leftist writers and publishers before and after World War Two. She examines the progressive thinking that came through education and publishing at the time, in books and magazines for children from groups like the American Communists and commercial operators like Young World Books.
Black and white ethnicity was orchestrated so that “we, the people”, all Americans, could work together against the Communist enemy. Children's books (not for the first time) became weapons in a war of ideas, with images of black soldiers fighting for America, books about gangs that were metaphors for war, allegedly “unAmerican” books being banned from libraries and progressive schools being criticized for being communist (or fascist). The launch of the space satellite Sputnik in 1957 was an iconic trigger for more paranoia, feeding through into new and frenzied initiatives in science in schools (America must be better) and appropriating well‐known American figures like Abraham Lincoln as left‐wingers.
Mickenberg's overarching point is that, within this changing social scene, energized by rivalry with Soviet Russia, the American left not only put strong political arguments forward to shape education and the direction of children's reading, but also contributed substantially to an understanding of progressive and proletarian issues that was later to form the seedbed for new writers and thinkers of the 1960s, the time of more open politics with diversity and civil rights. Throughout she cites and discusses examples and evidence, supporting this with extensive notes and a sound bibliography. This is an original work which adds distinctively to our knowledge of the 20th century children's literature and to the effect of politics on it (and its effect on politics). Thoroughly recommended for any academic and personal library where children's literature, current as well as historical, is seriously studied, above all the paperback which at the value is remarkable.
