The New Workhorse of Children’s Literature

The Norton Anthology of Children’s Literature, edited by Jack Zipes, Lissa Paul, Lynne Vallone, Gillian Avery, and Peter Hunt.
W.W. Norton. $65.00 (Slipcase Edition), $67.50 (Textbook)

Last year W.W. Norton released another of its rather intimidating literature anthologies. This one, however, The Norton Anthology of Children’s Literature, looks a bit different from most, and notably, was released simultaneously in two editions: a Slipcase Edition ($65) for the general reader, and an identical College Textbook Edition ($67.50) for students and teachers. The book, covering some 350 years of English-language children’s literature, is quite an accomplishment.

At first glance, the contents of this anthology seem to resemble those of Norton’s other workhorse textbooks: general introductions, author introductions, scrupulous annotations, comprehensive bibliographies and index, and, let us not forget, primary texts. These texts, by 170 authors and illustrators, are of some of the most enduring works of literature produced in English, and they are, of course, what sets The Norton Anthology of Children’s Literature apart from its sister anthologies. The texts, with their 400 illustrations—60 of which are in color (the permission fees must have been staggering!)—are also the reason, no doubt, that Norton released the Slipcase Edition. This marks the first time I can remember Norton actively courting a general readership for a college-level anthology.

The editors—five, a hefty number even for a Norton—are all luminaries in the field of children’s literature: Jack Zipes, general editor; Lissa Paul and Lynne Vallone, associate general editors; and Gillian Avery and Peter Hunt, editors. They have gathered together texts representative of many genres, including alphabets, fables, fairy tales, picture books, and, most important to readers of this site, poetry.

Indeed, of the more than 40 full-length works included, nine are complete collections of poetry, among them Christina Rossetti’s Sing-Song: A Nursery Rhyme Book, Robert Louis Stevenson’s A Child’s Garden of Verses, Robert Graves’ The Penny Fiddle, Randall Jarrell’s The Bat-Poet (okay, it’s mostly prose, but the poetry’s that’s in it—wow!), Lucille Clifton’s Some of the Days of Everett Anderson, Pat Mora’s Confetti, and Grace Nichols’s Come On into My Tropical Garden. Although they couldn’t afford permissions for it all, there is also a great deal of Marilyn Nelson’s Carver: A Life in Poems, a fabulous and moving book.

This makes for quite a collection on its own, but also included is poetry by Nancy Willard and John Agard, immortals such as Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll, and, of course, those wonderful, anonymous poets who surround us every day: the singers of nursery rhymes and playground poetry.

The world of children’s poetry studies is very small. Nearly all of those who seriously study children’s poetry are acquaintances of mine, at the very least. I know Lissa Paul, who edited the anthology’s section on children’s poetry and authored the headnotes. Early in the process of putting together this mammoth survey spanning more than 2,400 pages, she called me for advice about the poetry section. I also know Michael Joseph, who wrote the teaching guide available to instructors who plan to use the anthology in class.

Yes, it is a small world. But, conversely, the world of children’s poetry itself is a large, exciting world of varied terrain, from the lilting, accentual rhythms of Mother Goose and her cousins to the tightly structured formal verse of contemporary authors such as Marilyn Nelson. This is why the Norton, and its poetry section in particular, is so crucial: it is an invitation—and a friendly one—into the compelling world of children’s poetry, an invitation that ideally will pique the interest of students of children’s literature, students who—we can only hope—will eventually turn into teachers of children’s literature, and who (let us hope some more) might very well become future scholars of children’s poetry. We need the help.

Throughout the anthology, the introductory material is solid: useful, well written, and academically rigorous. Lissa’s prose is exceptionally fine—both direct and musical. One can tell that she’s been immersed in good poetry. Her opening remarks make it clear to emerging scholars (and their teachers) that the “two characteristic strains of the English tradition of poetry for children are the prayer and the nursery rhyme” (1117).

She then explains the profound shift that the 20th century saw in children’s poetry, noting that in the 1920s, “when Milne’s poem [“Vespers”] appeared in Vanity Fair, poetry for children was at a turning point, beginning a shift from the religious to the secular, from the rural to the urban, from the white Anglo-Saxon Protestant to the religiously and culturally diverse” (1117). Her introduction fleshes out and complicates this claim, as do the selections. The nursery rhymes “echo forward.”

Charles Causley, Walter de la Mare, and Christina Rossetti’s decidedly literary verses hold vestiges of their oral roots; in the teaching guide, Michael Joseph tells us that “part of the pleasure of [Rossetti’s] verse is in its comforting familiarity, in its self-assured and expressive echo of older lines.” He then links a line from a traditional riddle, “a yard of pudding’s not an ell,” to Rossetti’s “a city plum is not a plum.” More obvious are the links among Jane Taylor’s ubiquitous “The Star” (probably better known by its first lines, “Twinkle, twinkle, Little Star / How I wonder what you are!”), Lewis Carroll’s fine parody, “Twinkle, twinkle, little bat! / How I wonder what you’re at!” and John Agard’s more serious “Twinkle Twinkle Firefly.”

Although Lissa does include the playground poem “Ringo, Ringo, Ringo Starr,” she generally shows a great deal of restraint when it comes to playground poetry, leaving out such subversive gems as

Twinkle, Twinkle, little star,
Who the hell do you think you are?
Up in heaven you think you’re it;
     Down on earth you’re full of shit.

Ultimately, the playground poetry section of the anthology is the most disappointing, because it fails to represent the breadth of this vital form of children’s poetry. Playground poetry, after all, is not only the most common form of children’s poetry but also the most commonly overlooked.

The anthology does not provide sufficient examples of the multiple aesthetic and social functions that playground poetry serves. Some playground rhymes, for instance, are used to choose players in games (“Eenie meenie minie moe / Catch a tiger by its toe”), while others facilitate jump-roping (“Cinderella dressed in yellow / Went upstairs to kiss her fellow”) or hand-clapping games (“Miss Mary Mac, Mac, Mac / All dressed in black, black, black”). Still others censure poor behavior (“Liar, liar, pants on fire”), mock authority (“Joy to the world, the teacher’s dead / I barbecued her head”), mock peers (“I’m a monkey, you’re a donkey / I smell sweet and you smell funky”), or defend against mockery (“Sticks and stones may break my bones / But words will never hurt me”). However, all playground poetry is poetry, as all such poems strive for lyrical inventiveness and language play.

The anthology’s bibliography is one of the most useful of its kind, enlarging for student and general reader alike the discourse surrounding children’s literature and that special subset, children’s poetry. It rightly gives the reader a sense that there is a community of scholars dedicated to illuminating these texts and understanding their contexts. Although the bibliography’s typeface is almost inhumanly small (they always are in Norton anthologies), that itty-bitty text points readers to lucid and landmark studies, all of which are well selected and relevant. Perhaps the general Slipcase Edition will inspire non-academics to read some of these studies, expanding the discourse even further.

In this anthology, poetry is not pushed off to some lonely corner to gather dust, but finds its way into several sections. In fact, the anthology opens with poetry, as the editors aptly begin their endeavor with a section on alphabets (A is for alphabet—and anthology). A great many of these are abecedarian poems, most memorably “In Adams Fall,” whose 26 couplets get under way with “In Adams fall / We sinned all.”

“The Picture Alphabet”, also found in the opening section of the anthology, includes illustrations of such striking rhymes as “D Was a Drunkard / And he lov’d a full pot, / His face and his belly / Show’d him a great sot.” On the bottom of each of this alphabet’s 26 pages, one finds a single line of a parallel poem, the famous “A apple-pie” rhyme: “B bit it. / C cut it. / D dealt it,” and so forth. Were this poem not clearly dated circa 1830, I am sure it would be lauded as a fine example of postmodern poetry, from the integration of word and image to the complex interweaving of two strands of verse: the abecedarian quatrains centered on each page and the accentual couplets underneath.

We find more poetry in the chapbook section: the episodic adventures of Tom Thumb, cast into ballad stanzas; the verses embedded in “The History of Jack the Giant Killer”; the ballad “Children in the Wood”; the poems throughout The New England Primer; Isaac Watts’s Divine Songs for Children; and, debatably, an excerpt from Frog and Toad Are Friends, which is formatted as if it were free verse and, as a result, takes on a resonance that I had never before noticed:

“What’s the matter, Toad?
You are looking sad.”

“Yes,” said Toad.
“This is my sad time of day.
It is the time
when I wait for the mail to come.
It always makes me very unhappy.”
“Why is that?” asked Frog.
“Because I never get any mail,”
said Toad.

And this is not all: poetry sparkles throughout the 32-page color insert. Yes, even a cursory read of this anthology speaks to the importance of poetry in the world of children’s literature.

The anthology is not designed to be read from cover to cover. I’m sure most of its readers will encounter it only in the classroom, which is a shame, for this is an eminently readable book full of treasures. I applaud Norton’s decision to release it for a general audience. The texts found within deserve one, and I am not thinking only of the poetry.

Let me end by insisting that, as a rule, I generally do not play “desert island” games: my tastes are too varied to choose favorites. However, even considering that The Norton Anthology of Children’s Literature weighs in at five pounds, you might consider slipping a copy into your carry-on bag the next time you make a transoceanic flight, or the next time you find yourself at sea. Just in case. A book like this could come in handy, for who knows where you might get stranded?