The Lion and the Unicorn

Emily Midkiff wants more science fiction books published for children. In Equipping Space Cadets: Primary Science Fiction for Young Children, Midkiff makes a compelling, data-driven argument that not only is science fiction available and appropriate in books for readers under the age of twelve, but also these books are being read voraciously. Midkiff upends the myth that “scientific extrapolation and speculation in fiction are beyond most children’s abilities or interests” (5). Through her qualitative and quantitative research, Midkiff shows that children benefit from and find joy in developing what she calls “science-fictional thinking” as they progress as learners, readers, and members of society. As one of the only books devoted solely to studying primary-aged science fiction texts, it establishes a firm foundation upon which future research can build. [End Page 193]

The project in Equipping Space Cadets is two-fold. The book’s first project is to provide a report on various gathered data to establish that primary-aged children consume science fiction and that more science fiction packaged for primary-aged children needs to be written. Midkiff uses statistical data modeling, an online survey, and recorded reading sessions to accomplish this feat. Through an analysis of library lending, Midkiff shows how primary science fiction books have circulated. The circulation analytics provides the basis by which she then shows how primary readers have read and been provided science fiction (online survey and recorded reading sessions).

Midkiff’s data analysis does not get bogged down in jargon or complexity. As a reader who is not well-versed in statistical modeling or qualitative research methods, I found that her explanations filled my knowledge gap and illuminated her findings well. However, although it is easy for a reader to understand, Midkiff’s organization made the text seem less engaged in a conversation and more like a single case study. Rather than framing her book like a literary study in which she performs readings and theoretical or historical interventions, she favors using her first three chapters to explain her work’s parameters and theoretical genesis. The fourth chapter is a case study that brings together her data, and the conclusion establishes her work within its political auspices. While this made it easy to see the progression of the data, it made it difficult to parse the specific contributions Midkiff was making more largely and how each field she engages (e.g., children’s literature, childhood studies, science fiction studies, literary studies) benefits or is changed by her findings.

Midkiff’s second project—which, as I mention above, should have been considered more throughout the data analysis—is to establish a theoretical framework by which children’s science fiction can be categorized, assessed, and critically taught. This framework pulls on childhood studies, citing a genealogy of what it means to be a “child,” and science fiction studies, developing a history of what it means to be “science fiction.” These histories of thought allow Midkiff to place her determining data within a broader genre; in other words, her theoretical work grants her the ability to position her work squarely on a shelf within a library. She formulates “primary science fiction” through this genesis and forwards the idea of “science fictional thinking” as the key vocabulary for this categorization. For Midkiff, science fictional thinking is the way that science fiction “teaches a way of thinking that is especially helpful in an age in which technology radically updates over the course of months” (13). This form of teaching—learned through science fiction because of its ability to cognitively estrange readers into processing what a future could be—provides those growing up with the ability to tackle the changing world of technology and thought. While her theoretical gloss [End Page 194] gives her entry and definitions for her data sets (she uses science fictional thinking to determine her texts), she is not as concerned about the academic conversation around children or science fiction as she is about using these contributions to...