Lesley D. Clement

Rita Bode

E. Holly Pike

Margaret Steffler

From Jane Austen to contemporary fanfiction and adaptations, literary portrayals of the child and imaginings of childhood are particularly telling indicators of cultural values and when they shift. Inspired by the responsive reading practices of L.M. Montgomery herself, those demonstrated by her characters, and those of her diverse readership, Children and Childhoods in L.M. Montgomery works with concepts of confluence, based on organic, non-linear readings of texts across time and space. Such readings reconsider views of childhood and children by challenging power hierarchies and inequities found in approaches that privilege more linear readings of literary influence. While acknowledging differences between childhood and adulthood, contributors emphasize kinship between child and adult as well as between past and present selves and use both scholarly approaches and creative reimagining to explore how the boundaries between different stages of life are blurred in Montgomery’s writing. Children and Childhoods in L.M. Montgomery addresses Montgomery’s challenges to prescribed assumptions about childhood while positioning her novels as essential texts in twenty-first-century literary, childhood, and youth studies. Contributors include Yoshiko Akamatsu (Notre Dame Seishin University), Balaka Basu (UNC Charlotte), Rita Bode (Trent University), Holly Cinnamon, Lesley D. Clement, Vappu Kannas, Heidi Lawrence (University of Glasgow), Kit Pearson, Rosalee Peppard Lockyer, E. Holly Pike, Laura Robinson (Acadia University), Kate Scarth (UPEI), Margaret Steffler (Trent University), William Thompson (MacEwan University), Bonnie Tulloch (UBC), Asa Warnqvist (Swedish Institute for Children’s Books)

Continuing Conversations

Children and Childhoods in L.M. Montgomery

The Ontario Years, 1911-1942

L.M. Montgomery's Rainbow Valleys

Lucy Maud Montgomery (1874-1942) and Anne of Green Gables will always be associated with Prince Edward Island, Montgomery's childhood home and the setting of her most famous novels. Yet, after marrying Rev. Ewan Macdonald in 1911, she lived in Ontario for three decades. There she became a mother of two sons, fulfilled the duties of a minister's wife, advocated for copyright protection and recognition of Canadian literature, wrote prolifically, and reached a global readership that has never waned. Engaging with discussions on both her life and her fiction, L.M. Montgomery's Rainbow Valleys explores the joys, sorrows, and literature that emerged from her transformative years in Ontario. While this time brought Montgomery much pleasure and acclaim, it was also challenged and complicated by a sense of displacement and the need to self-fashion and self-dramatize as she struggled to align her private self with her public persona. Written by scholars from various fields and including a contribution by Montgomery's granddaughter, this volume covers topics such as war, religion, women's lives, friendships, loss, and grief, focusing on a range of related themes to explore Montgomery's varied states of mind. An in-depth study of one of Canada's most internationally acclaimed authors, L.M. Montgomery's Rainbow Valleys shows how she recreated herself as an Ontario writer and adapted to the rapidly changing world of the twentieth century. Contributors include Elizabeth Waterston (Guelph), Mary Beth Cavert (Independent), Margaret Steffler (Trent), Laura M. Robinson (Royal Military College), Caroline E. Jones (Austin Community College), William V. Thompson (Grant MacEwan University), Melanie J. Fishbane (Humber College), Katherine Cameron (Concordia University College), Emily Woster (Minnesota-Duluth), Natalie Forest (York), E. Holly Pike (Memorial-Grenfell), Linda Rodenburg (Lakehead-Orillia), Kate Sutherland (York), Lesley D. Clement (Lakehead-Orillia), Kate Macdonald Butler (Heirs of L.M. Montgomery Inc.).

The Ontario Years, 1911-1961

Leyli Jamali

This volume visits death in children’s literature from around the world, making a substantial contribution to the dialogue between the expanding fields of Childhood Studies, Children’s Literature, and Death Studies. Considering both textual and pictorial representations of death, contributors focus on the topic of death in children’s literature as a physical reality, a philosophical concept, a psychologically challenging adjustment, and/or a social construct. Essays covering literature from the US, Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Canada, the UK, Sweden, Germany, Poland, Bulgaria, Brazil, Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union, India, and Iran display a diverse range of theoretical and cultural perspectives. Carefully organized sections interrogate how classic texts have been adapted for the twenty-first century, how death has been politicized, ritualized, or metaphorized, and visual strategies for representing death, and how death has been represented within the context of play. Asking how different cultures present the concept of death to children, this volume is the first to bring together a global range of perspective on death in children’s literature and will be a valuable contribution to an array of disciplines.

Lesley D. Clement

Books

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