Part I
Critics, Crosswriting, and the Canon
Chapter 1
Crossing the Border
Authors Do It, but Do Critics? The Reception of Dual-Readership Authors in the Netherlands
HELMA VAN LIEROP-DEBRAUWER
Introduction
Ever since the emergence of a literature specifically meant for children in the second half of the eighteenth century, there have been authors who write for adults as well as for children (henceforth called dual-readership authors1). In the beginning, when childrenâs literature was still developing into an independent literary market, there were many dual-readership authors. The reason these authors did not write exclusively for children, but combined it with writing for adults, was mainly financial: The target group of young readers was relatively small. It also undoubtedly had something to do with the low status of childrenâs literature. A significant number of childrenâs books were published anonymously.2 Particularly for men with a high social status, it was considered inappropriate to write for children. The general view was that women were closer to children and therefore better suited for the task. When, in the course of the nineteenth century, the division between childrenâs literature and adult literature became sharper and the demand for childrenâs books increased, the financial argument declined and the number of dual-readership authors went down. The low status of childrenâs literature, however, did not change.
In the past two decades, the number of dual-readership authors has again increased. This goes for the Dutch-speaking regions, as well as for other language areas.3 In Dutch-speaking regions this increase is explained by the literary emancipation of childrenâs literature in the 1980s and 1990s. In childrenâs literature, attention now is paid to the literary form of the text, whereas, in the 1970s, people focused on the engage content. As a consequence of this literary emancipation, the gap between writing for children and writing for adults where form has been stressed since the beginning of the twentieth century4 has been diminishing.
Galef divides the group of dual-readership authors into three categories. According to him, the most frequent category is the group of authors of adult literature who, for some reason, begin writing for children during their career. An example of an author with such a career is Roald Dahl. The second category of authors develops a career in the opposite way: They start as authors for children, then decide to write for adults.5 Galef mentions Russell Hoban as a representative of this category. The third group of authors is described by Galef with the term âpolygraphy,â a designation that indicates that this group consists of authors who have always combined their writing for children with writing for adults. A. A. Milne is one such writer.
Although there has been a substantial number of Dutch-speaking dual-readership authors since the second half of the eighteenth century, only a few have succeeded in being highly valued in both literary systems.6 The majority of the authors are canonized in one, but not in the other literary system, or are marginalized in both systems. In the last fifteen years, however, many authors have established themselves in both literary systems.
The question is if, and in what respect, contemporary dual-readership authors influence the relation between childrenâs literature and adult literature. In what way does their presence change the heretofore low status of childrenâs literature when compared with adult literature? The answer to this question requires an analysis of the reception of these authors in recent literary studies and contemporary reviews in journals of both literary systems.
Literary Studies
The first thing that strikes one when searching in Dutch literary studies for an answer to the question just raised is that in childrenâs literature studies done since the 1980s, there is structural attention to the literary emancipation of childrenâs literature. These developments have led to discussion of whether or not the traditional borderline between childrenâs and adult literature still exists. In this debate, dual-readership authors are mentioned several times as an illustration of the blurring of these borderlines:
That in the past few years the traditional demarcation between childrenâs literature and adult literature has been breached several times might best be illustrated by the growing border traffic. From both directions, authors who want to augment their radius of action go on a scouting expeditionâŚ..In any case, the number of authors of adult literature who have published one or more childrenâs books in the past few years, is striking.7
A majority of the authors mentioned by Van den Hoven (1994) are authors from Galefâs first category: authors of adult literature who at a certain moment made their debut in childrenâs literature, for example, Mensje van Keulen, Sjoerd Kuyper, Toon Tellegen, Nicolaas Matsier, and Willem van Toorn.
For some people, especially academics, the developments in childrenâs literature are a reason to argue that childrenâs literature should have a position equal to that of adult literature. A few scholars8 are even inclined to integrate childrenâs literature into adult literature.
In the same period, literary critics within the adult literary system have paid little structural attention to childrenâs literature and the border traffic between childrenâs literature and adult literature. Occasionally, there is some interest: A single journal devotes a special issue to childrenâs literature9 and, in some histories of literature, the authors do not confine themselves to occasional notes on a single childrenâs author, but instead give an overview of recent developments in childrenâs literature.10 It must be said that the authors of these overviews either are working in the field of childrenâs literature or working within both the childrenâs literary system and the adult literary system. In one of the essays, the growing number of dual-readership authors is explicitly related to the literary renovation of childrenâs literature: âThis change of climate appeals to authors who traditionally write for adults.â11
Once again, this situation is not unique to the Dutch language area. In the English language area, for example, the boundaries between childrenâs literature and adult literature also are mainly explored by the childrenâs literary system, whereas there is relatively little interest in the border traffic within the adult literary system. A few literary compendia have an entry on childrenâs literature12 and now and then a journal on adult literature publishes a special issue on childrenâs books.13
Literary Prizes
Since the end of the 1980s, Dutch childrenâs literature has two important literary prizes that are awarded annually: the Golden and Silver Slate Pencil and the Libris Woutertje Pieterse Prize. This last prize is a result of the literary innovations in childrenâs literature. The prize was introduced in 1987 by the Woutertje Pieterse Foundation at the initiative of several well-known Dutch reviewers who wished to see the childrenâs book as a full literary genre. For that reason, they wanted a prize for a book of Dutch origin for children or young adults with exceptional qualities with respect to language and content as well as image and graphic design.
An overview of the prizes awarded in the last ten years shows that debuts in childrenâs literature of authors who had previously only written for adults, like Mensje van Keulen, Guus Middag and Toon Tellegen, are often awarded, in any case, more frequently than other debuts. Moreover, these authors also are awarded relatively often for their later books. Dual-readership author Toon Tellegen, for example, is the author who has most frequently won the Libris Woutertje Pieterse Prize.
Although the literary qualities of the prize-winning books have certainly been decisive, it is likely, on the basis of the previously mentioned pleas for affiliation with adult literature, that the need of the childrenâs literary system to blur the boundaries between childrenâs literature and adult literature and, subsequently, advance in status, has played a role. Awarding literary prizes to well-known authors of adult literature breeches traditional boundaries and helps to establish a positive image.
The reverse takes place in adult literature. The nomination of a childrenâs book14 for an important literary prize for adult literature in the Netherlands, the AKO Prize for Literature, induced several well-known critics to object against such an affiliation of childrenâs literature with adult literature. A year later, the rules were changed to prevent that from happening again. An âadultâ prize for a childrenâs book is bad for the reputation of adult literature and more far-reaching than a special issue or attention in a history of literature, where childrenâs literature is carefully distinguished from adult literature. A prize stands for explicitly awarded quality.
Literary Reviews
The weekly reviews in cultural supplements form, together with the literary studies and prizes, a good measure for developments in literature. Therefore, a logical question is whether or not the degree of attention paid to the border traffic and the role of dual-readership authors in literary studies is shared by reviewers in both literary systems. This question will be answered by means of a case study of the reception of the oeuvre of the Dutch author Mensje van Keulen by critics.
Mensje van Keulen had her debut in 1972 with Bleekers Zomer (Bleekerâs summer) as an author for adults. Since then she has written twelve books for adults. Her last novel, Olifanten op een web (Elephants on a web), was published in 1997. Her debut as a childrenâs author was in 1985 with the fantasy story Tommie Station (Tommy Station). Her most recent childrenâs book, Pas op voor Bez (Beware of Bez), was published in 1996.
When comparing the reviews of Van Keulenâs childrenâs books with the reviews of her work for adults, one is immediately struck by the fact that there are fewer reviews of the latter (on the average, thirteen per childrenâs book and sixteen per book for adults). Moreover, the reviews of her books for children are on the whole substantially shorter than the reviews of her adult books. The reviews of her childrenâs literature debut average 314 words, whereas critics on the average devote 846 words to her debut in adult literature. Moreover, in reviews of her childrenâs books, more lines are devoted to a reproduction of the content than in reviews of her adult books. The majority of the reviews of the childrenâs books describe the content and end with a brief evaluation, most of the time without arguments. The reviews of Van Keulenâs oeuvre seem to indicate that the conclusions of a research study on childrenâs literature reviews that was undertaken in the 1980s still apply.15 In this study, the researchers pointed to the poor quality of childrenâs books reviews as a consequence of the above mentioned imbalance between description of content and argumentation.
Another important difference between the reviews of childrenâs books and the critiques of adult books is that, in the former, the application possibilities of the books are often mentioned, as well as the appropriate age to read the book and the kind of children that will appreciate it. The increased attention paid to the literary aspects of childrenâs literature in literary studies is almost absent in the newspaper critiques. The pedagogical approach to childrenâs literature appears to be still firmly fixed in critical practice. The most likely explanation of this are the readers of these reviews. Critics of childrenâs literature write their reviews primarily for the âcommonâ buyer of childrenâs books, that is, childrenâs care-givers, who are mainly interested in which book is appropriate and interesting for the child that they are raising.
The...