[EDLING:278] CFP: Children's Lit & the Left

[Francis M. Hult]

CHILDREN'S LIT & THE LEFT
Special Issue, CHILDREN'S LITERATURE ASSOCIATION QUARTERLY

Wanda Gag, Syd Hoff, and Crockett Johnson are famous for their
children's books, but each also contributed regularly to the New Masses
(a left-wing journal published in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s). They
are but a few of the children's writers who were involved with the
Left. Dr. Seuss published political cartoons in PM (popular front
newspaper, New York, 1940-48); looking back on the experience, he
remarked, "I had no great causes or interest in social issues until
[opposing] Hitler." More recently, Martin Waddell's Farmer Duck (1991,
illus. Helen Oxenbury), Michael Bedard's Sitting Ducks (1998), Toby
Speed's Brave Potatoes (2000, illus. Barry Root), and Doreen Cronin's
Click Clack Moo (2000, illus. Betsy Lewin) demonstrate the power to be
gained by organizing and agitating for one's rights. This special issue
of the Children's Literature Association Quarterly invites submissions
related to any aspect of children's literature (or children's culture
more generally) and left-leaning political movements (that is,
movements concerned with social justice).

Topics may include but are
not limited to: the Bank Street School (students included Margaret Wise
Brown and Ruth Krauss), activist children's books, theorizing
relationships between literature and politics, and individual authors
with related affiliations or interests.

Please send essays to: Julia
Mickenberg (Department of American Studies, 1 University Station,
B7100, Austin, TX 78712; mickenberg at mail.utexas.edu) and Philip Nel
(Department of English, 108 E/CS Bldg., Kansas State University,
Manhattan, KS 66506-6501; philnel at ksu.edu).  Essays must be received by
1 May 2005.  The issue will appear in February 2006.