Title: <i>A Stranger Shore: A Critical Introduction to the Work of Mollie Hunter</i>, and: <i>Susan Cooper</i> (review)
Abstract: Reviewed by: A Stranger Shore: A Critical Introduction to the Work of Mollie Hunter, and: Susan Cooper Donna R. White (bio) A Stranger Shore: A Critical Introduction to the Work of Mollie Hunter. By Betty Greenway. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 1998 Susan Cooper. Twayne's United States Authors Series No. 696. By Nina Mikkelsen. New York: Twayne, 1998 Celtic Studies is a broad interdisciplinary field that incorporates the literature, language, history, art, music, and religion of six different Celtic cultures. Such a variety of interests encourages Celtic Studies scholars to be inclusive and open-minded, yet few of them are aware of a large body of work arising out of the Celtic cultures and concerned with Celtic themes. I am referring, of course, to a particular subset of children's literature. Not only are there active children's writers in Ireland, Wales, Scotland, and Cornwall (some of whom write in their native Celtic tongues), but there are also many authors of Welsh, Scottish, or Irish extraction who choose to reshape Celtic materials in their books for young readers. Both groups of writers tend to write fantasy and collect major literary awards. Mollie Hunter, an active Scottish writer, is a representative of the first group, while Susan Cooper, a British expatriate of Welsh descent, represents the second. Hunter has won the Carnegie Medal and the Phoenix Award, and Cooper is a recipient of the Newbery Medal and the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award. A Stranger Shore, Betty Greenway's critical study of Mollie Hunter, is a superbly written and impeccably researched scholarly introduction to Scotland's foremost children's writer (J. K. Rowling notwithstanding). This volume is worth reading simply for the pleasures of Greenway's prose, which puts much academic writing to shame. As an introduction to Hunter's work, A Stranger Shore provides an in-depth analysis of her fantasy, historical, and realistic novels for children and young adults as well as a brief discussion of her nonfiction essays about writing for children. The book concludes with an interview conducted especially for this study—a thoughtful and respectful gesture that allows Hunter to have the last word. As Greenway states, Mollie Hunter "is above all a Scottish writer, imbuing all her books with the folklore and history of Scotland" and carrying on the tradition of Sir Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson (xviii). Like her two illustrious predecessors, Hunter writes historical fiction, but unlike them, she also writes fantasies based on Scottish folklore and legend and realistic novels set in contemporary Scotland. As a self-taught scholar of folklore, history, literature, anthropology, comparative religion, and psychology, Hunter is able to infuse her books with a complexity and depth of meaning shared only by the best of [End Page 57] children's literature. Her choices of genre and broad knowledge base help her paint a portrait of Scottish culture that is clearly in the spirit of Celtic Studies. Greenway's critical approach is feminist and psychoanalytical, but not exclusively so. In fact, if she had not announced her approach in the introduction, I would not have labeled it as Freudian or feminist because the book is remarkably free of jargon. Greenway examines the central themes in Hunter's work, which she lists as "changelings, shape-shifting, doubling, duplicity, and deception" as well as Hunter's obsession with good and evil (stemming from her coming of age during World War II) and the overwhelming influence of her father, whose early death had a huge impact on Hunter both personally and professionally (xix). Greenway's discussions of Hunter's novels are stimulating and thought-provoking; they show a great respect for and deep understanding of Hunter, her works, and children's literature in general. Scholars of Celtic Studies, children's literature, fantasy literature, historical fiction, and the contemporary novel will find enrichment and enlightenment here. Nina Mikkelsen's Twayne volume Susan Cooper is meant for a different audience. Twayne caters more to the educated public than to academic readers. As a scholar of Celtic Studies and children's literature, I did not discover anything new about Susan Cooper in Mikkelsen's book, but an undergraduate writing a term paper on Cooper would find...
Publication Year: 2001
Publication Date: 2001-03-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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