Only Connect: Readings on Children's Literature

Only Connect is a well chosen group of essays that represent most of the facets of children's literature, from picture books to young adults, from the authors' impressions to the literary critics. Since there isn't a lot of information on this site about this book, I'll go into detail. The first section "Books and Children" includes a variety of general essays ranging from the importance of literature to children to specific archetypes/motifs that show up in children's writing. The plums of this section are John Daniel Stahl's "The imaginitive Uses of Secrecy in Children's Literature" and Tim Wynne-Jones "An Eye for Thresholds." You won't look at setting the same way again after reading these. This is followed by 3 sections "Myth and Folklore," "Fantasy" and "Science Fiction." P.L. Travers "Unknown Childhood" is a very mythic essay that will get you thinking about what all those fairy tales actually do for the listener. Margaret Mahy's essay reveals in brief how she develops ideas. Tamora Pierce's essay on "Fantasy: Why kids read it, Why Kids Need it" describes the special quality of YA readers to a T. This essay breaths life into the genre. Terry Pratchett's "Let there be dragons" is a good overview on science fiction, and a good laugh too.Then there is a section on Poetry, including an essay by the widely acclaimed XJ Kennedy, a section on Picture Books which ranges from Uri Shulevits' "What is a Picture Book" to David Lewis's "The Constructedness of Texts: Picture Books and the Metafictive." Ha ha! Take that you post-modernists! Children's books have had characters popping out of the pages and ripping through their own illustrations for years. Then there are three essays on Gender Relations. Brian Attebery's "Women's Coming of Age in Fantasy" is definitely food for thought to anyone trying to plot a modern young adult book. Next is you guessed it, a section on YA literature. The Adolescent Novel of Ideas" by Peter Hollindale which talks both about realistic fiction and speculative fiction. Here's a quote to think on "The adolescent novel of ideas is marked at its best by the logic, spaciousness, and lack of compromise of its 'what if's'."Then the book concludes with "Recent Trends and Overviews" which includes a healthy debate on the use of children's literature for certain agendas, censorship and the publishing industry. Katherine Patterson's essay is very candid, and covers both the creative process and what it is to write historical fiction. It is followed by a very sweet and short piece by Margaret Atwood. So, if you are interested in Children's Literature, there's enough variety here I'm sure you can find something that interests you.