Windows and Words: A Look at Canadian Children's Literature in English

Dave Jenkinson is a professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Manitoba and the author of the “Portraits” section of Emergency Librarian.

In 1999, at the University of Ottawa, a group of scholars and some
writers for juveniles participated in the Canadian Children’s
Literature Symposium, which sought to answer two questions: What
literary legacy do our children have to light up their future, and what
in Canadian children’s fiction (both past and present) is literature?
Windows and Words consists of 17 studies, essays, and commentaries that
resulted from that gathering.

The most readable contributions are those written by individuals who
are most directly connected with the creation of children’s
literature, especially the offerings by authors Tim Wynne-Jones (“The
Apprehension of Audience: The Difference Between Writing for Adults and
Children”), Janet Lunn (“The Picture Book: A Commentary”), and
Groundwood’s Michael Solomon who provides an instructive glimpse into
the role that design and art direction play in the production of
children’s books. Judith Saltman’s essay, “Canadian Children’s
Literature at the Millennium,” concisely responds to the
conference’s first question.

Based on the fact that six of the book’s pieces focus on Lucy Maud
Montgomery, one might conclude that university English departments
consider only Montgomery’s work to be of sufficient merit to be
assessed as literature and thus worthy of scholarly study. Written in a
formal academic style, such pieces, with their narrower focus, will be
less accessible and likely less interesting to a wider audience.

Given the work’s subtitle, especially the “in English” portion,
the inclusion of Sandra Beckett’s “Retelling Little Red Riding Hood
Abroad and at Home” could be questioned because, though an interesting
read, it only tangentially touches on the conference’s focus.

The collection closes with a brief annotated listing of the
contributors, but this information would have been more useful had it
been included in an expanded form with the appropriate entry. Saying
that “Alan West is a sessional lecturer at the University of Ottawa”
contributes little to the reader’s understanding of why he co-authored
“Secrecy and Space: Glenn Gould and Tim Wynne-Jones’s The Maestro”
with “Lee Harris [who] teaches music at Concordia College.”

Windows and Words is likely to be of more value to academic then public
libraries.