Mothers in Children’s and Young Adult Literature: From the Eighteenth Century to Postfeminism

283 Pages·2016·3.09 MB·English

by  Lisa Rowe Fraustino

Mothers
in Children’s and
Young Adult Literature
Illustration by Sir R. Noel Paton from Charles Kingsley’s The Water Babies (Macmillan, 1863)
Mothers
in Children’s and
Young Adult Literature
From the Eighteenth Century to Postfeminism
Edited by Lisa Rowe Fraustino and Karen Coats
University Press of Mississippi / Jackson
Children’s Literature Association Series
www.upress.state.ms.us
The University Press of Mississippi is a member
of the Association of American University Presses.
Copyright © 2016 by University Press of Mississippi
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
First printing 2016
∞
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Fraustino, Lisa Rowe, editor. | Coats, Karen, 1963–editor.
Title: Mothers in children’s and young adult literature : from the eighteenth
century to postfeminism / edited by Lisa Rowe Fraustino and Karen Coats.
Description: Jackson : University Press of Mississippi, [2016] | Series:
Children’s literature association series | Includes index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015042374 | ISBN 9781496806994 (hardback)
Subjects: LCSH: Children’s stories, English—History and criticism. |
Children’s stories, American—History and criticism. | Mothers in
literature. | Motherhood in literature. | Mothers in popular culture. |
Motherhood in popular cutlture. | Young adult fiction, English—History
and criticism. | Young adult fiction, American—History and criticism. |
Feminism and literature. | Women and literature. | BISAC: LITERARY
CRITICISM / Children’s Literature. | SOCIAL SCIENCE / Women’s Studies. |
SOCIAL SCIENCE / Popular Culture.
Classification: LCC PR990 .M69 2016 | DDC 820.9/9282—dc23 LC record
available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015042374
British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data available
Contents
ix Acknowledgments
3 Introduction: Mothers Wanted
—Lisa Rowe Fraustino and Karen Coats
Part I—historical Legacies: Maternal Instruction and Delight
27 Chapter 1 Barbauld and the Body-Part Game: Maternal Pedagogy in the
Long Eighteenth Century
—Donelle Ruwe
45 Chapter 2 Juliana Ewing’s Six to Sixteen: Realizing and Rewriting
Maternal Legacy
—Koeun Kim
59 Chapter 3 The Romance of Othermothering in Nineteenth-Century
Backfisch Books
—Julie Pfeiffer
Part II—Mothering in Modernity: shifting Cultures and subjectivities
77 Chapter 4 The Women Who Sent Their Children Away: Mothers in
Kindertransport Fiction
—Adrienne Kertzer
vi CONTENTS
96 Chapter 5 Minority Mama: Rejecting the Mainstream Mothering Model
—Dorina K. Lazo Gilmore
113 Chapter 6 Cultural-Historical Activity Theory and the Expansive Cycle of
Mothering while Black
—Lauren Causey and Karen Coats
133 Chapter 7 “The hills were in her bones”: Living in the Blend of Mothers
and Environments
—Anna Katrina Gutierrez
Part III—the Mother-Child Bond: Fantasy and Desire for the real
153 Chapter 8 Animal Mothers and Animal Babies in Picture Books
—Robin Calland
170 Chapter 9  A Daughter’s Sacrifice: Saving the “Good-Enough Mother” 
from the Good Mother Fantasy
—Alexandra Kotanko
182 Chapter 10 “The Mother Was the Mother, Even When She Wasn’t”:
Maternal Care Ethics and Children’s Fantasy
—Mary Jeanette Moran
Part IV—Performing Postfeminist Motherhood
201 Chapter 11 “I Would Never Be Strong Enough”: Sarah Dessen’s
Postfeminist Mothers
—Sara K. Day
216 Chapter 12 Abandoning Mothers
—Lisa Rowe Fraustino
CONTENTS vii
233 Chapter 13 “A Mom-Shaped Hole”: Psychoanalyisis and the Dystopian
Maternal
—Jennifer Mitchell
251 Contributors
255 Index
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Acknowledgments
This is Lisa. First and foremost I must thank Karen Coats. If she had not
visited my Mothers in Children’s and Young Adult Literature class at Hol-
lins University in the summer of 2013, this book idea would still be one of
many projects filed away in the category of “one I really want to do when I
have more time.” She offered to coedit a collection, and being a long admirer
of her work, I jumped at the opportunity. I have enjoyed every minute and
learned a great deal from her, especially about the latest developments in
cognitive studies and reading schemas. Karen and I think differently about
things and have different editorial skill sets that complement each other
nicely; of her many talents, the one that I think most benefited this book is
her rare gift for climbing into someone else’s complex theory and explain-
ing it in ways that make it crystal clear on the page. A partnership like this
has the potential to strain a friendship, but it only strengthened ours.
Next, I must thank the three institutions that have supported my schol-
arship. First is the Children’s Literature Association, which has given me an
academic home, introduced me to many scholarly friends (including Karen),
and allowed me to test my ideas on mothers and other topics at annual con-
ferences since 1994. At my first conference, in Missouri, I met Elizabeth
Keyser, the ChLA foremother who is responsible for inviting me to propose
a course to teach at the next institution I must thank: Hollins University.
In the summer of 1995 I joined the visiting faculty in the Graduate Program
in Children’s Literature at Hollins and since then have had opportunities
to teach a wide range of courses in my areas of interest, both in creative
writing and critical approaches to texts. Amanda Cockrell, the director, has
been my enabler, not only embracing the idea of offering a special topics
course Mothers in Children’s and Young Adult Literature in 2005 but then
deeming the topic important enough to become a permanent course that
generations of Hollins students may experience. Thank you, Amanda.
ix