L.M. Montgomery and Gender ed. by E. Holly Pike and Laura M. Robinson (review)

Abstract

porary Reviews (2004), or both. Eiselein also refers to Clark’s Kiddie Lit: The Cultural Construction of Children’s Literature in America (2003), her important articulation of children’s books such as Little Women being moved to the margins of literary culture; and Phillips and Doyle cite several essays in Clark’s co-edited collection, with Janice M. Alberghene, “Little Women” and the Feminist Imagination: Criticism, Controversy, Personal Essays (1999). In his acknowledgments Shealy links these extraordinary teachers, scholars, and friends to Amy March’s desire to be “‘great, or nothing.” “Beverly Lyon Clark and Joel Myerson,” Shealy concludes, “were ‘great’” (x). Little Women at 150 is a rich, mature volume that rounds out at least thirty years of Alcott criticism and children’s literature scholarship. It could usefully supplement an Alcott seminar at the graduate level, offer rich and accessible essays for undergraduate teaching, fuel further Alcott research, and enrich teaching and scholarship in not only children’s literature but cultural studies, gender studies, history, American and transatlantic studies, and book history. It’s also a volume simply to read for pleasure and enjoy.