Little Red Readings
Little Red Readings
Historical Materialist Perspectives on Children’s Literature
A significant body of scholarship examines the production of children’s literature by women and minorities, as well as the representation of gender, race, and sexuality. But few scholars have previously analyzed class in children’s literature. This definitive collection remedies that by defining and exemplifying historical materialist approaches to children’s literature. The introduction of Little Red Readings lucidly discusses characteristics of historical materialism, the methodological approach to the study of literature and culture first outlined by Karl Marx, defining key concepts and analyzing factors that have marginalized this tradition, particularly in the United States.
The thirteen essays here analyze a wide range of texts—from children’s bibles to Mary Poppins to The Hunger Games—using concepts in historical materialism from class struggle to the commodity. Essayists apply the work of Marxist theorists such as Ernst Bloch and Fredric Jameson to children’s literature and film. Others examine the work of leftist writers in India, Germany, England, and the United States.
The authors argue that historical materialist methodology is critical to the study of children’s literature, as children often suffer most from inequality. Some of the critics in this collection reveal the ways that literature for children often functions to naturalize capitalist economic and social relations. Other critics champion literature that reveals to readers the construction of social reality and point to texts that enable an understanding of the role ordinary people might play in creating a more just future. The collection adds substantially to our understanding of the political and class character of children’s literature worldwide and contributes to the development of a radical history of children’s literature.
Hubler’s thoughtfully curated and presented collection strengthens multicultural analysis through its addition of the Marxist historical materialist perspective.
Little Red Readings makes a major contribution to historical materialist criticism and to children’s literature criticism. The thirteen essays by outstanding scholars offer a wonderful variety of historical materialist approaches to a range of topics within children’s and young adult literature, and the introduction offers a useful overview of historical materialism as a methodology. And, the essays are a great read!
Little Red Readings is a big deal and great stuff! Thanks to Angela Hubler and the contributors to this significant book on historical materialism and children’s literature, we can grasp more clearly why it is necessary to study the class conflicts and socio-economic relations that forge the very nature of children’s literature. Indeed, Hubler’s book is very timely, because we tend to evade talking about the causes of the immiseration of children while praising noteworthy books that deal with the denigration and abuse of children. There is no evasion in Little Red Readings, and let us hope there will be more readings like this in the future.
Angela Hubler’s Little Red Readings is an historical materialist primer for children’s lit scholars and a call to action. It’s Marxist. It’s feminist. It’s radical. Read it!
Angela E. Hubler is associate professor of women’s studies at Kansas State University. She has published essays in the Lion and the Unicorn, ChLA Quarterly, Critical Survey, Papers on Language and Literature, NWSA Journal, Women’s Studies Quarterly, and Against the Current.
