Electronic Reserve Text: Petros Panaou
Children's Literature in the 60s and 70s and the "Disconnection Argument" : A Movement Towards Children's Literature for both Children and Adults

A. Introduction

I was recently astonished to hear one of my peers explaining how the name of my favorite field of study, Children's Literature, contributes to the disparagement of the field. She suggested that the word "Children's" added in frond of the highly esteemed term "Literature" functions in a negative manner, as far as academic value is concerned. The fact that I am new in the field (and in the country as a matter of fact) contributes to my asking naïve questions; so, I asked, "Why is that? Is a Children's Psychologist, for example, less respected as a scientist and a professional, than other Psychologists are?" I was again astonished to receive a positive answer. It seems that whenever a term is associated with the word "children", it inevitably falls to a lower status.

Ironically, after doing some research for the purposes of this paper, I have found out that originally the field was established as a serious, scientific section of Literary Criticism (during the 60s and 70s) based on the idea that children's literature is not to be read only by children, but also by adults. In other words, it gained status through its disconnection from the word "children" and its connection with the word "adults." Of course, I do not claim that this disconnection was the only factor that contributed to the field's development. I am only suggesting that it was one of the most important factors. Its importance becomes obvious when one considers the passion with which the "disconnection argument" had been supported (the term is my invention, it has not been used by anyone else).

While I briefly refer to the other factors, in this paper I will basically focus on the "disconnection argument". This paper was supposed to have a general approach to the history of Children's Literature, but pure curiosity has led me towards a more narrow approach. During my research for another paper on Children's Literature journals, I had found out that most of the contemporary journals first started publication during the 70s; the field in general seems to have bloomed during the 60s and 70s. Because of this discovery, I decided to search for the factors that caused this blooming. As I have already said, I am convinced that one of the most important factors was the establishing of children's literature works as suitable readings for adults. This led to the assumption that it was "respectable" for an adult to write or criticize Children's Literature.

In the next section of the paper I will describe the development of the field during the 60s and 70s. I will also mention some other factors that might have also contributed to this development. In the third and most important part of the paper I will refer to the "movement towards Children's Literature for both children and adults;" the "disconnection argument". The last section is constituted by the conclusion and suggestions for further research.

B. The Development of Children's Literature During the 60s and 70s

According to Townsend, Children's Literature production dramatically increased during the 60s because of institutional support: "American publishers had the boost of Title II (of President Johnson's Elementary and Secondary Education Act, 1965) which made huge funds available for book purchase." (188-189) The situation in Britain was also very favorable:

"In Britain, the rise of the 'quality' children's book in the 1950s and early 1960s had several consequences. One, an excellent one, was that many talented authors, some of them already established as writers for adults, were attracted into the field. Another was that people, notably educators, who had previously shown little interest in children's literature began to take notice of it." (Townsend 189)

Suzanne Rahn describes a similar blooming in Children's Literature Criticism: "But in both Britain and America the 1960's brought the next great change. New awards, new approaches to criticism, new accusations, more searching analyses published in more scholarly periodicals - all sprang suddenly into being." (xiv) Actually, "Sprang suddenly into being" is an understatement of the huge development that took place. A more suitable description would be that children's literature criticism developed during the 60s and 70s in a "Big-Bang" fashion. A whole universe of journals devoted exclusively to children's literature, written and read mostly by scholars was created: Signal (1969), Children's Literature in Education (1970), Children's Literature (1972), Phaedrus (1973), ALAN Review (1973), Canadian Children's Literature (1975), Children's Literature Association Quarterly (1976), The Lion and the Unicorn (1977), and Advocate (1981). And these are only the most significant ones.

Children's Literature became a serious part of Literary Criticism. Both critics and academics took the field more seriously: "Although children's literature, much like reader response theory, always had a theoretical base of study, reading stances that concentrate on the literary aspects of children's literature did not evolve until the 1970s" (May 23). The final touch in the establishing of the field came with its recognition from the Modern Language Association:

"In the United States and Canada, critical approaches to the study and teaching of children's literature have proliferated in English departments in colleges and universities in the period since the 1970s when journals such as Children's Literature and Children's Literature Association Quarterly were founded and the Children's Literature Association, allied with the Modern Language Association, came into being" (Zipes 107).

I could fill out pages and pages with evidence in order to prove that the 60s and 70s can be considered "the golden age" of Children's Literature in general, and of Children's Literature Criticism in specific, but I find that what I have already presented is more than enough.

So, having said that, the next logical question would be "Why? Why did this blooming take place during the 60s and 70s?" One could suggest many reasons. Some of them have already been hinted. Of course a clear distinction between cause and effect is not an easy task in this case. However, I will attempt to list a few reasons here:

1. Institutional support increased the production of children's literature, which in turn caused an increase in children's literature criticism.

2. The production of better children's literature drew the interest of "many talented authors and educators." (Townsend 189)

3. This period, especially the 60s, was characterized by an "increased social awareness." (Rahn xiv) This gave a new boost to Children's Literature Criticism; both old and new books were examined in respect to social issues such as feminism, racism, the holocaust, war, etc.

4. Children's Literature Criticism was accepted in the big family of Literature Criticism because it managed to establish a different self-image. Scholars and critics vigorously supported that Children's Literature does not necessarily address an audience consisted only of children, and even if it did, this audience would not be a homogeneous one (not all children think or feel alike). This last reason is extensively analyzed in the next section of the paper.

C. The "Disconnection Argument": A Movement towards Children's Literature for both Children and Adults

"Hence a man who admits that dwarfs and giants and talking beasts and witches are still dear to him in his fifty-third year is now less likely to be praised for his perennial youth than scorned and pitied for arrested development. If I spend some little time defending myself against these charges, this is not so much because it matters greatly whether I am scorned and pitied as because the defence is germane to my whole view of the fairy tale and even of literature in general." (Lewis 25)

C.S. Lewis, one of the leading critics of his time and author of the famous Narnia books, expressed here a widespread notion in the circles of Children's Literature Criticism during the 60s and 70s. Proving that children's literature was also fit for adults was considered by many critics to be essential to the "whole view of the fairy tale and even of literature in general." The basis of the argument was that adults should grow with and not out off fairy-tales; i.e. adulthood does not exclude joy in reading fantasy.

J.R.R. Tolkien, perhaps the most influential author and critic of the period, described the logic, and fears, behind this idea in his book Tree and Leaf. He passionately supported that if children's literature were confined to the nursery and schoolroom, to be read only by children, then it would be ruined for ever: "Fairy-stories banished in this way, cut off from a full adult art, would in the end be ruined; indeed in so far as they have been so banished, they have been ruined. The value of fairy-stories is thus not, in my opinion, to be found by considering children in particular." (Tolkien 35) He believed that if children's literature were only used to "educate" the children or to fit other needs of the "class of children," then it would cease to be literature. He did not think that children could be viewed as a single "class" or "species." He considered each child to be a separate individual.

John Rowe Townsend clarified the argument: "I believe that children's books must be judged as part of literature in general, and therefore by much the same standards as 'adult' books. A good children's book must not only be pleasing to children. It must be a good book in its own right." (qtd in Lesnik-Oberstein 132) Marilyn Kaye's statement adds to this point: "'Children are not an audience any more than 'adults' are … To say 'This is a good book for children' is like saying 'This is a good book for people.' It's a meaningless expression." (qtd in Whallen-Levitt 75)

Many, many others have expressed similar opinions during the 60s and 70s. Some of them are Hugh Crago, Claude Rawson, Penelope Mortimer, Paula Fox, and Meindert DeJong. Their views can be found in Whalen-Levitt's Dissertation, The Critical Theory of Children's Literature: A Conceptual Analysis and in Lesnik- Oberstein's book, Children's Literature: Criticism and the Fictional Child. Lesnik-Oberstein mentions a couple of terms that have been used (and are still used) to characterize children's literature critics who "preoccupy themselves with the literary, and do not - ostensibly - discuss child readers;" (102) these terms are: "Book People," "Purists," "Pluralists" or "Literary Critics." I find that she successfully depicts the main goal of these critics:

"The book-centered literary pluralist critics are knocking on the door of a Leavisite 'literature' of which Leavis wrote 'we accept the field [of literature] to be more or less strictly delimited in accordance with the conception of literature as a matter of memorable works.'…Children's literature criticism such as Townsend advocates tries to envisage just such a community of adult critics and readers for children's books, which will gain the books an entrance to literary prestige and canonization." (137-138)

Her own stance is opposite to that of the Literary Critics (or Purists, or Pluralists), but then she writes her book in the 90s, when Children's Literature is already, more or less, respected.

In my opinion, the goal of these critics as described above was, in a great extend, achieved during the 70s. Rahn attributes the blooming of the field during the 60s and 70s mainly to the two leading "Purist" critics, J.R.R. Tolkein and C.S. Lewis:

"Both Tolkein's insistence that fairy-stories were not necessarily for children and Lewis's that 'a children's story which is enjoyed only by children is a bad children's story' helped brake down the barriers between adults' and children's literature and thus made analytical criticism of children's literature more respectable." (xv)

The whole thesis of this paper is included in the above quotation: These critics gained respect for the field through their insistence on disconnecting Children's Literature from "the child." The ultimate "disconnection" was achieved by Tolkein through his book The Lord of the Rings. This phenomenon of a book, which later became a series, was first published in 1954 and reprinted in 1966, 1974, 1979, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985 and 1986. Although it obviously belongs to Children's Literature, this book became immensely popular among college students, i.e. adults. This fact contributed the maximum to Tolkien's argument about Children's Literature not being written exclusively for children.

Alison Lurie writes that students in the 70s and early 80s "might spray paint FRODO LIVES on public buildings [Frodo was the main character in Tolkein's book] or past bumper stickers reading I BREAK FOR ELVES on their VWs" and many of them "owned the complete authorized version of Tolkein." (58-59) This unprecedented popularity of a "children's book" among adults worked in favor of Children's Literature as a whole. "Professor J.R.R. Tolkein in The Lord of the Rings has shown that the connection between fairy tales and children is not nearly as close as publishers and educators think. Many children don't like them and many adults do." (Lewis 37)
Rahn explains the effect on the field: "Finally, the influx of fantasy and children's literature into the campuses resulted in the establishment of college-level courses in these areas; this led, by a natural academic process, to research and publication by the professors who were teaching them." (xv)

D. Conclusion and Suggestions for Further Research

In this paper I have described the immense development of Children's Literature and especially of Children's Literature Criticism during the 60s and 70s. I have also given some possible reasons that caused this development. In the most part of the paper I have analyzed one of those reasons that I consider very important: During this period a group of critics led by J.R.R. Tolkein and C.S. Lewis successfully posed the "disconnection argument;" that is they strongly supported that children's literature does no only address an audience of children, thus it should be analyzed in the same fashion as "adult" literature. It is my conviction that this argument influenced positively the status of the field; the fact that both the argument/movement and the development took place during the same time period is probably not a coincidence. Despite the fact that I have cited some evidence to connect the two, I am aware of the fact that more research is necessary before they can be firmly connected.

Works Cited

Lesnik-Oberstein, Karín. Children's Literature: Criticism and the Fictional Child.
New York: Oxford UP, 1994.
Lewis, C.S. Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories. New York: Harcout, Brace &
World, 1967.
Lurie, Alison. Not in Front of the Grown-Ups: Subversive Children's Literature.
London: Cardinal, 1991.
May, Jill P. Children's Literature and Critical Theory: Reading and Writing for
Understanding. New York: Oxford UP, 1995.
Rahn, Suzanne. Children's Literature: An Annotated Bibliography of the History
and Criticism. New York: Garland, 1981.
Tolkein, J.R.R. Tree and Leaf. Boston: Houchton Mifflin, 1965.
Townsend, John Rowe. Written for Children: An Outline of English-language
Children's Literature. 3rd ed. New York: J.B. Lippincott, 1987.
Whalen-Levit, Peggy. The Critical Theory of Children's Literature: A Conceptual
Analysis. Diss. U of Pennsylvania, 1983. Ann Arbor: UMI, 1986.