Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Book review column

2000; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 25; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/chq.0.1361

1553-1201

Mark I. West,

Themes in Literature Analysis

Book review column Mark I. West (bio) When Roberta Seelinger Trites, the new editor of the Children's Literature Association Quarterly, asked me if I would be willing to serve as the Quarterly's book review editor, I hemmed and hawed for a few moments. I knew in my heart that I was going to agree, but I was trying to figure out how I would fit another project into my already busy schedule. I went through the motions of telling Roberta about my various prior commitments. My little speech, however, sounded so hollow that I stopped in mid-sentence and told Roberta I'd enjoy being the book review editor. One thing I have learned about myself is that I can always find time for something that I love, and I happen to love the whole business of book reviewing. After a long conversation, Roberta and I agreed to a set of goals and guidelines regarding the Quarterly's approach to book reviewing. Our chief goal is to run a review of every scholarly book that deals with children's literature within a year of the book's initial publication. In an effort to accomplish this goal, the Quarterly will include as many book reviews as possible in each issue. To make room for this many reviews, however, it is necessary to put some constraints on the length of the reviews. I am therefore asking reviewers to keep their reviews below 1000 words. No matter how much space the Quarterly devotes to book reviews, I cannot run a review of every book that publishers send me. I have already mailed out over twenty books to reviewers, but I have a stack of other books that I do not plan to send out. In some cases, these are reference books. Others are textbooks or books that deal primarily with pedagogy. Some are pamphlets, while others are books that take a popular rather than a scholarly approach to children's literature. I am sure, however, that the Quarterly has readers who would be interested in knowing about the existence of these various books. For this reason, the Quarterly will run a brief column titled "Books Received." This column will provide publication information and brief descriptions of those books that have not been sent out for review. I am well aware that my goals and plans depend entirely on the help and cooperation of others. Without books to review or reviewers to review them, this whole enterprise would collapse. I therefore ask the authors and publishers of scholarly works on children's literature to send me review copies as soon as they are available. I also ask the readers of the Quarterly to consider becoming book reviewers. I need reviewers who are knowledgeable about children's literature and who are comfortable writing concisely and under deadline pressure. Please contact me if you would like to be added to my list of potential reviewers and let me know your particular area of expertise. Send correspondence and review copies to Mark West, English Department, UNC Charlotte, Charlotte, NC 28223. Send email messages to MIWEST@email.uncc.edu. I conclude with a word of thanks to my predecessor, Susan R. Gannon. Susan served as the Book Review Editor of the Quarterly from 1982 to 2000. During these eighteen years, she solicited and edited well over one hundred book reviews. In the process, she did much to make children's literature a topic considered worthy of serious scholarship. Books Received Adventuring with Books: A Booklist for Pre-K-Grade 6. 12th Ed. Ed. Kathryn Mitchell. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English, 1999. Adventuring with Books is an annotated bibliography of children's books published between 1996 and 1998. The Alice Companion: A Guide to Lewis Carroll's Alice Books. By Jo Elwyn Jones and J. Francis Gladstone. New York: New York UP, 1998. Arranged alphabetically, this reference work provides over 400 short entries on various topics that relate to Lewis Carroll's classic books. The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition. Ed. Martin Gardner. New York: Norton, 2000. This work combines the annotations from Gardner's Annotated Alice (1960) and More Annotated Alice (1990). Bemelmans...