Home Words: Discourses of Childrenâs Literature in Canada

The essays in Home Words explore the complexity of the idea of home through various theoretical lenses and groupings of texts. One focus of this collection is the relation between the discourses of nation, which often represent the nation as home, and the discourses of home in children's literature, which variously picture home as a dwelling, family, town or region, psychological comfort, and a place to start from and return to. These essays consider the myriad ways in which discourses of home underwrite both children's and national literatures. Home Words reconfigures the field of Canadian children's literature as it is usually represented by setting the study of English- and French-language texts side by side, and by paying sustained attention to the diversity of work by Canadian writers for children, including both Aboriginal peoples and racialized Canadians. It builds on the literary histories, bibliographical essays, and biographical criticism that have dominated the scholarship to date and sets out to determine and establish new directions for the study of Canadian children's literature.

Table of Contents:
Table of Contents for Home Words: Discourses of Childrenâs Literature in Canada , edited by Mavis Reimer Introduction: Discourses of Home in Canadian Childrenâs Literature | Mavis Reimer Chapter 1: Home and Unhoming: The Ideological Work of Canadian Childrenâs Literature | Mavis Reimer Chapter 2: Les représentations du âhomeâ dans les romans historiques québécois destinés aux adolescents | Danielle Thaler et Alain Jean-Bart Chapter 3: Le home : un espace privilégé en littérature de jeunesse québécoise | Anne Rusnak Chapter 4: Island Homemaking: Catharine Parr Traillâs Canadian Crusoes and the Robinsonade Tradition | Andrew OâMalley Chapter 5: Home and Native Land: A Study of Canadian Aboriginal Picture Books by Aboriginal Authors | Doris Wolf and Paul DePasquale Chapter 6: At Home on Native Land: A Non-Aboriginal Canadian Scholar Discusses Aboriginality and Property in Canadian Double-Foculized Novels for Young Adults | Perry Nodelman Chapter 7: White Picket Fences: At Home with Multicultural Childrenâs Literature in Canada? | Louise Saldanha Chapter 8: Windows as Homing Devices in Canadian Picture Books | Deborah Schnitzer Chapter 9: The Homely Imaginary: Fantasies of Nationhood in Australian and Canadian Texts | Clare Bradford Chapter 10: Home Page: Translating Scholarly Discourses for Young People | Margaret Mackey with James Nahachewsky and Janice Banser Afterword: Homeward Bound | Neil Besner Works Cited Contributors Index Contributors Neil Besner is Professor of English and Associate Vice-President (International) at the University of Winnipeg. He writes mainly on Canadian literature, with books on Mavis Gallant and Alice Munro; his most recent books are a translation into English of a Brazilian biography of the poet Elizabeth Bishop (2002), an edited collection of essays on Carol Shields (2003), and a co-edited collection of essays on Canadian and Brazilian postcolonial theory (2003). Clare Bradford is Professor of Literary Studies at Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia, where she teaches literary studies and childrenâs literature, and supervises students undertaking MA and PhD programmes. She has published widely on childrenâs literature, with an emphasis on colonial and postcolonial texts and utopian discourses. Her most recent book is Unsettling Narratives: Postcolonial Readings of Childrenâs Literature (2007). Paul Depasquale is an Associate Professor of English at the University of Winnipeg, where he works in the area of Aboriginal cultural and literary studies. His publications include, as editor, Native and Settlers Now and Then: Historical Issues and Current Perspectives on Treaties and Land Claims in Canada (University of Alberta Press, 2007), and, as co-editor, Louis Birdâs Telling Our Stories: Omushkego Voices from Hudson Bay (Broadview Press, 2005). He is also co-editor of Contexts in Canadian Aboriginal and Native American Literatures (Broadview Press, forthcoming 2008). DePasquale is of Mohawk and European backgrounds and is a member of the Six Nations of the Grand River Territory. Alain Jean-Bart enseigne à Lille en France. Il sâintéresse à la littérature de jeunesse et aux arts plastiques. Il à été lâun des principaux collaborateurs de était-il une fois: Littérature de Jeunesse; panorama de la critique France-Canada et co-auteur de Les enjeux du roman pour adolescents . Il entreprend actuellement des recherches sur les présupposés idéologiques de la fiction historique pour adolescents. Margaret Mackey is a Professor in the School of Library and Information Studies at the University of Alberta. She has published widely in the area of young peopleâs reading and media use. Her newest book is Mapping Recreational Literacies (Peter Lang, in press). Perry Nodelman is a Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Winnipeg and the author of Words about Pictures: The Narrative Art of Childrenâs Picture Books . In collaboration with Mavis Reimer he is the author of The Pleasures of Childrenâs Literature . His latest novel for children is Not a Nickel to Spare: The Great Depression Diary of Sally Cohen , in Scholasticâs Dear Canada series. He is currently finishing an academic book about the generic characteristics of texts of childrenâs literature to be published by John Hopkins University Press and, in collaboration with Carol Matas, a young adult novel about ghost hunters to be published by Key Porter. Andrew OâMalley is an Associate Professor of English at Ryerson University. His book, The Making of the Modern Child: Childrenâs Literature and Childhood in the Late Eighteenth Century , was published by Routledge in 2003. Currently, he is working on a larger study of robinsonades and of Robinson Crusoe in popular culture. Mavis Reimer is the Canada Research Chair in the Culture of Childhood and an Associate Professor in the Department of English at the University of Winnipeg. She is co-author of the third edition of The Pleasures of Childrenâs Literature (2003), the editor of a collection of essays on Anne of Green Gables, entitled Such a Simple Little Tale , and Associate Editor of the journal Canadian Childrenâs Literature/Littérature canadienne pour la jeunesse . At present, she is working on a book about the construction of the imperial child in Victorian childrenâs literature. Anne Rusnak est professeure dâétudes françaises à lâUniversité de Winnipeg, où elle enseigne un cours sur la littérature jeunesse francophone au Canada. Ses recherches et ses publications portent sur la littérature de jeunesse et, à présent, elle est la rédactrice associée (volet francophone) de la revue Canadian Childrenâs Literature/Littérature canadienne pour la jeunesse . Louis Saldanha is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English at the University of Winnipeg, Manitoba. She is presently on leave and teaching at Grande Prairie College, Alberta. Her research and teaching interests are involved in the theory and practice of anti-oppression, especially concerning racialized and gendered identities. Her work is informed by critical theories of race, cultural studies, gender, diaspora and pedagogy, and has focused on childrenâs literature and culture and Canadian literature and culture. Deborah Schnitzer is an educator, activist, editor and writer, most recently circulating in the speculative fiction gertrude unmanageable. She is honoured to be part of the conversation developed in this collection and the further exploration into words and pictures it encourages in her. Danielle Thaler enseigne au département de français de lâuniversité de Victoria en Colombie-Britannique au Canada. Elle sâintéresse à la littérature de jeunesse depuis un nombre dâannées et en particulier au roman historique, au roman-miroir et au roman dâaventures. Ses publications incluent : Les enjeux du roman pour adolescents en 2002 avec Alain Jean-Bart, LâHarmattan, Paris, et divers articles dont le plus récent, paru dans la collection éducation-recherche (Imaginaires métissés en littérature pour la jeunesse) aux Presses de lâUniversité du Québec en 2006, sâintitule Métissage et acculturation : le regard de lâautre . Elle travaille actuellement à une série dâessais mettant en lumière lâévolution de la représentation du personnage féminin dans la fiction historique contemporaine pour jeunes. Doris Wolf is an Assistant Professor of English and teaches and coordinates courses for the Community-Based Aboriginal Teacher Education Program at the University of Winnipeg. Her work on representations of Germans and Germany in Canadian literature has been published in Studies in Canadian Literature (2002), Refractions of Germany in Canadian Literature and Culture (Walter de Gruyter, 2003) and Diaspora Experiences: German-speaking Immigrants and Their Descendants (Wilfrid Laurier Press, forthcoming). She is currently working on representations of tribal nationalism in young adult novels by Aboriginal authors and literary celebrity in the field of Canadian publishing.

About the Author :
Mavis Reimer is Canada Research Chair in the Culture of Childhood, director of the Centre for Research in Young Peopleâs Texts and Cultures, and an associate professor in the Department of English at the University of Winnipeg. She is co-author with Perry Nodelman of the third edition of The Pleasures of Childrenâs Literature and editor of a collection of essays on Anne of Green Gables , entitled Such a Simple Little Tale .

Review :
``Complete with history, bibliographies, essays, and biographical criticism, Home Words: Discourses of Children's Literature in Canada is a top pick for community library literary criticism collections.'' -- The Midwest Book Review, June 2008 ``Grounded in postcolonial theory, which is deployed in an insightful, accessible manner, these essays explore issues of exile, immigration, homelessness, land use, and the impact of imperialism. Coverage includes picture books, Robinsonades, books by and about aboriginals in both Canada and Australia, and Québécois literature for children (two chapters are in French).... The essays are uniformly astute and well researched; the illustrations (many in colour), index, bibliography are excellent. A fine volume for those interested in children's literature, Canadian literature, and postcolonialism.... Highly recommended.'' -- E.R. Baer, Gustavus Adolphus College -- CHOICE, September 2008 ``This outstanding collection of essays, part of the Studies in Childhood and Family in Canada series published by Wilfrid Laurier University Press since 1999, ably demonstrates the ways in which the field of Canadian children's literature has evolved in leaps and bounds since the publication of earlier foundational studies such as Sheila Egoff's The Republic of Childhood in 1967, Judith Saltman's Modern Canadian Children's Books in 1987, and Elizabeth Waterston's Children's Literature in Canada in 1992.... In both what it accomplishes and what it leave open for future researchers, Home Words has become the latest foundational study in a dynamic and interdisciplinary field--both book and field are highly recommended.'' -- Benjamin Lefebvre -- Canadian Literature, 200, Spring 2009 ``[A] refreshingly new insight into Canadian children's literature. By focussing on texts which the general reader is less likely to have read, and providing rich glosses that enable the uninformed reader to follow the argument even when s/he has not read the primary text, the collection contributes to a rewriting of the Canadian `home.'... In doing so, they open the doors for others to engage with additional aspects of home in Canadian literature, and also to begin the larger study of home in other national literatures.'' -- Lydia Kokkola, University of Turku, Finland -- International Research Society for Children's Literature, Reviews 2009, 2009