Empire’s Nursery: Children’s Literature and the Origins of the American Century by Brian Rouleau (review)

Book Reviews well-behaved, and diligent child and the imperfect yet cute, “child-like” youngster. The last chapter, “Writing the Self,” transfers this concept from letters to diaries. Similar to the letters, diaries are read as a medium of both pedagogical strategies and a means of self-fashioning. These chapters are lined up in a generally chronological order; they also, however, lead the reader from reading material created for children to texts written by children. Bruce picks up on a fundamental problem of the field, and probably all historians of childhood will feel sympathetic towards her difficulties in the endeavor to find suitable and manageable sources. She deals with this problem in creative ways, by reading the periodicals, books, and tales as scripts that would reflect on and prescribe children’s lives. Bruce also works with children’s notes and marginalia in textbooks, certainly an innovative approach. In the last two chapters, she analyzes letters and diaries written by children. However, her conclusions about children being active participants in their own education, reflecting their own personal development and fashioning a “modern self,” remain somewhat vague. The framing within an “Age of Revolution” could have been explained more in-depth and used in more fruitful ways. In a similar vein, the relation between a general history of media, reading, and writing on the one hand and the role of children and childhood within these processes would have deserved a closer look. Ultimately, the often-repeated phrases of the modern child, the modern self, and subjectivity appear at times indiscriminate and formulaic. Bruce provides innovative, diligent, and valuable work (in particular the detailed tracing of several versions and editions is impressive), but the analysis at times seems to come to a halt too soon. In fact, the author’s decision to divide her chapters in very small sections supports this impression—I have been disappointed by the abrupt stop to a train of thought more than once. This is a book with tremendous potential which, unfortunately, has not always been redeemed. Nevertheless, Bruce has written an interesting, readable, and inspiring study.