Crossing the Boundaries.

Sheridan, Carlisle

Crossing the Boundaries Geoff Bull & Michele Anstey Prentice Hall, 2002, ISBN 1 74009 810 2. 338 pages

The boundaries described in the title, Crossing the Boundaries, are the 'traditional delineations' (as described in the blurb) between Schools of Education and the Arts in their approaches to teaching children's literature. University library studies include an academic study of books for children and children's writers and artists as part of training in children's librarianship. In Schools of Education children's literature is studied with a view to teaching children about ideas in literature as well as promoting literacy development. Children's literature in English departments is studied within the context of mainstream academic literary criticism without the focus on the child reader. These different approaches are represented by different professional bodies which hold conferences and promote publications in the field of children's literature: for example, the Children's Book Council of Australia, the Australasian Children's Literature Association for Research and the Australian Literacy Educators Association. Writers, artists and publishers for children are valued presenters at conferences for all these groups. Crossing the Boundaries brings an interdisciplinary perspective to the study of children's literature by including articles by experts in these different academic approaches from Australia and overseas and by including articles by experienced and successful children's writers and artists. This appears to be a unique collection in its breadth of focus. Apart from the interesting ideas, the articles are all clearly written, accessible and well presented.

Crossing the Boundaries is divided into four main parts, each of which includes a collection of articles on a theme. Part 1 comprises six articles on the theme of 'Reading illustration and text and the development of visual and new literacies'. This section is a valuable addition to the body of literature available about both visual literacy and the art of the picture book. Michele Anstey's article, 'More than cracking the code' provides a clear overview of many of the issues involved in contemporary children's literature study, and provides a useful reference list for researchers and students. Linda Knight's article, 'The "art" of research' presents a particularly interesting approach because of the new perspectives presented on how to look at and understand the art of children's picture books. Dr Knight is a research artist whose pictures illustrate the article. Colour would have been a helpful addition to the presentation of this material, as would a complete reference list including material discussed in the endnotes. In contrast, the comprehensive list of references supporting Geoff Bull's article, 'The post-modern picture book' is an outstanding and useful collection of material for academic researchers in this area. Again, the small black and white pictures under discussion in this section do not support the text as well as full colour illustrations undoubtedly would.

Parts two and three are not presented as comprehensively as Part one in providing a range of approaches from different viewpoints to the themes identified, and the headings given for these parts do not altogether support the reader 'dipping in' to information about approaches to children's literature. Part two comprises three articles on 'Fantasy, speculative fiction and other worlds'. The articles by the writers for children, Brian Caswell and Sophie Masson, both present rich information about this type of writing for children which is informed by the first-hand knowledge of their writer's craft and the audiences for their children's books. Sue Page's article, 'Looking for action--women in young adult fantasy', while interesting in itself, sits uneasily in this context as the third article in this section. The issues presented in her article about female protagonists presented in high fantasy as 'passengers, not drivers' appear to sit more comfortably with the articles collected in Part three, 'New constructions of femininities and masculinities'. In Part three, John McKenzie's article 'The representation of suicide in adolescent literature' and Kerry Mallan's article, 'Death, femininity and children's literature' present different views about representations of death in books for children. Along with Ray Misson's article, 'Not telling it straight' these three writers present hard-hitting facts and cross boundaries of a different sort, bringing up issues relating to censorship in presenting ideas for children and teenage classroom audiences through literature.

The collection of five articles in Part four, grouped as 'Social, cultural and linguistic effects on books for children', enrich and support each other by presenting a range of views and contexts for an exploration of these concepts. John Stephens' article, in particular, 'Writing by children, writing for children: schema theory, narrative discourse and ideology', demonstrates the ways the boundaries of the 'traditional' disciplines can be crossed with mutual benefit for each discipline, and this approach is further enriched by Myrna Machet's 'Sociological background as a factor in acquisition of narrative discourse skills'. The other articles in this section are equally well chosen. Jeri Kroll discusses popular literature through an examination of the writing of Paul Jennings and Robyn Sheahan-Bright analyses current issues in children's publishing. Rosemary Ross Johnston's 'Teacher-as-artist, researcher-as-artist: creating structures for success' concludes the section and the book with a well-written presentation of classroom applications of research into children's learning through literature.

Crossing the Boundaries is a useful addition to the body of writing on children's literature. The volume does not have the space to provide comprehensive explorations of the different disciplines, but the articles are interesting and varied and open up many enticing research opportunities. University students and researchers from all disciplines relating to children's literature will enjoy using the articles in this book.