THE CAMBRIDGE GUIDE TO CHILDREN’S BOOKS IN ENGLISH. Edited by Victor Watson. Cambridge pound;35.
Robert Dunbar finds few flaws in a generous guide to what children read
This large, attractive volume sets out, according to its introduction, to be “a reference work providing a critical and appreciative overview of children’s books written in English across the world”. It seeks to move beyond the “rather well-trodden” paths of children’s books from Britain and the US, to include writing from Canada, Australia, New Zealand, East and West Africa, and India. Additionally, it places emphasis on “the exciting and extraordinary renaissance in children’s books taking place in Ireland and South Africa”.
The genuinely wide range of the guide’s geographical content is one of its most valuable features. However, access to much of this information is not easy or straightforward. Readers keen to follow up the enticements of the introductory comments about, for example, South African or Irish writing, will find no specific entry on either and will therefore make most of their discoveries by accidentally encountering the names of individual writers or books. A picture of “the exciting and extraordinary renaissance in children’s books” in these countries emerges in a fragmented fashion.
The guide seeks also to extend its territory by making clear that its understanding of children’s reading is inclusive and democratic. The focus is on “books”, not “literature”; moreover, books are to be interpreted as including, among much else, such diverse material as annuals, comics, media texts and game books. The overall effect of this generosity of interpretation is refreshingly child-centred, even if it is not always clear why, for example, soap operas or Teletubbies have a place in a book concerned with what children read.
The four principal varieties of entry in the Guide - author entries, title entries, topic entries and technical terms - generally combine satisfactorily, though sometimes confusingly in their cross references. Some texts are given individual entries, some are mentioned only in author entries, some are accorded both. The most stimulating commentaries are in the “topic entries”, on subjects ranging from “books for the blind” via “gay and lesbian literature” to “riddles and jokes”. It would have been useful to include some consideration of the word “classic” (a term applied throughout the guide to numerous books) and of anthologies of poetry or short stories.
The compressed style, almost inevitable in such a guide, means that the value of some entries is diminished by over-simplification. Compression results in generalisations which, even though from different contributors, begin to sound similar: the comment of Rosemary Wells, that “using gripping and intricate plots she reveals a true understanding of teenage friendships and burgeoning maturity”, could apply to many of these writers.
As Watson acknowledges, it is almost impossible to achieve total accuracy. Equally, it can never be totally up to date. There are some errors: Eil!s Dillon was born in 1920, not 1929; “Nimh” Sharkey (page 648) should be “Niamh”; David Rees died in 1993, though his entry suggests he is still alive; Robert Leeson’s Silver’s Revenge is dated 1978 on page 420, 1979 on page 671. But these (and others) are minor blemishes. In terms of being up to date, the Guide manages, remarkably, to make references to books published in 2000, no small achievement given the preparation time necessary for such a volume.
There will, predictably, be reservations about some of the details in such a vast undertaking. But it is a tribute to Watson and his team of more than 250 contributors that the challenge has been addressed so successfully. The result is a publication which is likely to become (and remain for some time) a standard reference text. Its cost will be more than justified by the regular use which, in many different ways and settings, will be made of it.
