Children's Literature Association Quarterly

Converging Currents: The Consequences of the Critical Revolution by Peter Hunt I would Hke to talk about the progress of a quiet revolution, one that 1s changing our whole basis of thought about literature, and which will radically alter our present concept of status 1n the world of children's literature, of what 1s Important, and of who 1s on whose side. If that sounds a bit daunting, I also want to find out what we're all doing here: to probe our Innermost secrets about what we think about children's books. The Idea of rivers meeting 1s very appropriate for children's books. In this room now, there are experts In everything from nursery teaching to folklore; bibliography to child psychology; popular culture to seventeenth century chapbooks. All of us have different feelings about status, what children's literature 1s for: what H 1s. This 1s, of course, partly because we are not just, as we used to say, "book-people" or "child-people." There are people here who are primarily Interested 1n children, children and books, themselves and books, academic Hfe and books, old books, new books, and just books. There are even people who aren't much Interested 1n books at all, but 1n other media, and oral storytelling. So, all these streams and rivers flow down from Intellectual mountains and meet here! Now I should Imagine that the Intention of the organizers of this Conference 1s to suggest that all streams meet and form a strong flowing Mississippi; or, at least, a coherent drainage pattern Irrigating the plains of Ignorance, and flowing Into the great sea of knowledge. Unfortunately (as you will know 1f you've been to MLA) the danger of too many rivers meeting 1s that they turn Into a swamp. And so, 1f we're here from different motives, with different specializations, and different alms, H may be difficult to see what we have 1n common. It may even seem that we have re-arr1ved at the old extreme position: should we divide Into two groups, one concerned with children and books, and the other with books and adults (where the subject matter just happens, at some stage, to have been designed for children). Should we be associated not with a single journal, Children's Literature, but with TWO: the other being Children and Literature? Whatever feelings may have been 1n the past, I now would say, no; because, now we have no choice 1n the matter. Whatever our differences, I think we have two things 1n common. One 1s the revolution I mentioned: we are all going to be Influenced by H. The second 1s also a consequence of the revolution; H 1s something we have always had, but have never admitted to: a personal conviction about what the best kind of children's book really IS. And so I would Hke to add one word to the title of this conference, so that H reads "Confluence and Concurrents" (although, being an optimist, I read H as "Confluence and Concurrence"). . . "and Consequences." But first, what 1s this revolution? Simply, H 1s the consequence, for all of us, of following through a truth universally acknowledged and rarely followed to Hs logical conclusion: That We All Make Our Own Meanings From a Text. The revolution has come from several directions, Including, as Peter Neumeyer has noted, the dv1l rights movement, but, unlikely as H may seem, H has been most powerful 1n literary theory (a most academic and unrevolutlonary activity). I am particularly Interested 1n this subject because this winter I've been writing, or fighting, a book on Literary Criticism and Children's Literature. My Intention has been, and 1s, to Introduce critical theory to children's book practitioners, and to Introduce children's books to critics and students. That may sound Hke the perfect formula for a book that no-one will read, but while working on H, I rediscovered the fact that children's book people have to do what workers 1n almost no other discipline have had to do: to reconsider fundamentals: to define; to ask, just what 1s this subject? Why should we study H? How do we...