Bode, Rita, Lesley D. Clement, E. Holly Pike, and Margaret Steffler, eds. Children and Childhoods in L.M. Montgomery: Continuing Conversations. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2022.
Paratexts: Introduction by Lesley D. Clement with assistance from Rita Bode, E. Holly Pike, and Margaret Steffler; preface to afterwords by Lesley D. Clement and Margaret Steffler; afterwords by Holly Cinnamon, Vappu Kannas, Rosalee Peppard Lockyer, and Kit Pearson
6” x 9”, xii + 338 pp., 978-0-2280-1389-1 (trade paperback), 978-0-2280-1388-4 (unjacketed hardcover)
Children and Childhoods in L.M. Montgomery: Continuing Conversations is a collection of essays edited by Rita Bode, Lesley D. Clement, E. Holly Pike, and Margaret Steffler. It features paratexts by the volume editors as well as original scholarship by Yoshiko Akamatsu, Balaka Basu, Rita Bode, Lesley D. Clement, Heidi A. Lawrence, E. Holly Pike, Kate Scarth, Margaret Steffler, Laura Robinson, William Thompson, Bonnie J. Tulloch, and Åsa Warnqvist and afterwords by Holly Cinnamon, Vappu Kannas, Rosalee Peppard Lockyer, and Kit Pearson. The volume was published as a trade paperback and as an unjacketed hardcover by McGill-Queen’s University Press in October 2022.
From the Back Cover
From Jane Austen to contemporary fanfiction and adaptations, literary portrayals of the child and imaginings of childhood are particularly telling indicators of cultural values and when they shift.
Inspired by the responsive reading practices of L.M. Montgomery herself, those demonstrated by her characters, and those of her diverse readership, Children and Childhoods in L.M. Montgomery works with concepts of confluence, based on organic, non-linear readings of texts across time and space. Such readings reconsider views of childhood and children by challenging power hierarchies and inequities found in approaches that privilege more linear readings of literary influence.
While acknowledging differences between childhood and adulthood, contributors emphasize kinship between child and adult as well as between past and present selves and use both scholarly approaches and creative reimagining to explore how the boundaries between different stages of life are blurred in Montgomery’s writing.
Contents
Acknowledgments (ix–x)
Abbreviations Used in Notes (xi–xii)
Introduction / Lesley D. Clement, with assistance from Rita Bode, E. Holly Pike, and Margaret Steffler (3–23)
Part 1. Conversing with the Past: Vulnerability, Resistance, and Resilience
1. Emily of New Moon and Fanny of Mansfield Park: Childhood at Home in Jane Austen and L.M. Montgomery / Kate Scarth (27–46)
2. L.M. Montgomery’s Precocious Children: Resisting Adult Narratives of Death, Dying, and the Afterlife / Lesley D. Clement (47–67)
3. Vulnerable Situations: Boys and Boyhood in the Emily Books / Rita Bode (68–90)
Part 2. Conversing with the Present: Fantasy, the Ideal, and the Real
4. The Performance of the Beautiful Dream Boy in Novels by L.M. Montgomery and Frances Hodgson Burnett / Margaret Steffler (93–113)
5. Lost Boys and Lost Girls: The Kindred Offspring of J.M. Barrie and L.M. Montgomery / Bonnie J. Tulloch (114–35)
6. Magic for Marigold, Childhood, and Fiction / E. Holly Pike (136–55)
Part 3. Continuing Literary Conversations: Transformative Relationships and Spaces
7. Loving, Larking, and Lying: Free-Spirited Children and Disciplinary Adults in the Works of L.M. Montgomery and Astrid Lindgren / Åsa Warnqvist (159–81)
8. Absent Fathers: Conversations between L.M. Montgomery and Madeleine L’Engle / Heidi A. Lawrence (182–200)
9. Transformative Girlhood and Twenty-First-Century Girldom in L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables / William V. Thompson (201–20)
Part 4. Continuing Transmediated Conversations: Anime, Fanfiction, and Television Adaptations
10. The Problems and Possibilities Inherent in Adaptation: Emily of New Moon and Emily, Girl of the Wind / Yoshiko Akamatsu (223–41)
11. Continuing Stories: L.M. Montgomery and Fanfiction in the Digital Era / Balaka Basu (242–56)
12. Anne with an Edge: CBC-Netflix’s Rereading of Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables / Laura M. Robinson (257–73)
Afterwords
Preface to the Afterwords / Lesley D. Clement and Margaret Steffler (277–83)
Emily Kent—The Afterlife of Emily of New Moon / Vappu Kannas (284–89)
Anne’s Nature / Holly Cinnamon (290–94)
My Maud by Katie Maurice / Rosalee Peppard Lockyer (295–98)
Dear Maud / Kit Pearson (299–301)
Bibliography (303–28)
Contributors (329–32)
Index (333–38)