Tales for little rebels A collection of radical children's literature

"Radical" means "having roots" or "being rooted"--a definition that applies to this excavation of radical children's literature. In collecting and publishing out-of-print and forgotten works by 20th-century leftist authors, Mickenberg (Univ. of Texas, Austin) and Nel (Kansas State Univ.) fill a gap in scholarship on children's literature. Many of the themes--racism, women's rights, war--resonate today. The editors do not sugarcoat history: some works they include present the darker side of leftist leanings, including admiration for Stalin and the Soviet Union. Unlike Kimberley Reynolds's Radical Children's Literature: Future Visions and Aesthetic Transformations in Juvenile Fiction (CH, Jan'08, 45-2445), which offers critical analyses (of British children's literature), the present volume provides only short introductions to each piece, thus contextualizing the work and the writers but allowing the entries to speak for themselves. The first collection to deal with radical children's literature in the US, this anthology brings to light writings by authors whose contributions form the roots of modern children's literature, even though their names may have been forgotten. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals; general readers. P. J. Kurtz Minot State University

Professors Mickenberg and Nel have done a real service in reclaiming these selections of children's literature, some by such well-known children's book authors as Julius Lester and Dr. Seuss but many from writers whose reputations were made and works published on the barricades of the Left. Although bibliographic details can sometimes be difficult to sort out, there is a full and illuminating scholarly apparatus for each of the forty-four selections, which include such choices as Art Young's The Socialist Primer ("Is this a spider? It is. What is its other name? The capitalist system") and Jeanne Desy's "The Princess Who Stood on Her Own Two Feet" ("A Princess stands tall. And she does not betray those who love her"). Most of the selections are excerpts, which is probably a good thing, as long-windedness seems a characteristic of preaching to the choir. This is not a collection to share with children, not because of its spirited partisanship but because the two-column design, small type, and small black-and-white reproductions of illustrations are hard to read. An appendix includes a good list of child-friendly "radical books for young readers." From HORN BOOK, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.