Science Fiction, Children's Literature, and Popular Culture - Coming of Age in Fantasyland - by G. Westfahl

In a constantly changing world, individuals are forever growing to meet the challenges and developments that emerge around them. In contemporary society, technology is at the heart of change. Literature, too, reflects the evolution of culture and increasingly represents and considers technology. And as children become young adults, their reading helps shape their understanding of the world. This book examines representative works of science fiction, children's literature, and popular culture to show how these works reflect the process of growing up in a technological world.

The volume looks at the simple picture books and comic books that appeal to small children; the formulaic adventures that fascinate older children; the films and television programs that are watched by children and young adolescents; the music videos and programming that appeal to young adults; and the popular novels that interest older readers. Included are discussions of Superman, the Hardy Boys, Star Trek, science fiction films, and music videos. The book points to similarities among popular culture, science fiction, and children's literature and demonstrates the relevance of these works to contemporary society.

By Midwest Book Review on Sept. 8 2000
Format: Hardcover
Westfahl's essays in Science Fiction, Children's Literature And Popular Culture, range widely over American children's and YA popular entertainment, starting with a little known children's series but covering Superman, Horatio Algier and the Hardy boys, SF film (esp. the fifties) Star Trek and even music video in the context of film and advertising. Westfahl, a well known SF critic, allows himself more free-play in these essays. His playfulness gives rise to many intriguing speculations, connecting popular culture phenomena in convincing but previously unarticulated ways.
I greatly enjoyed each of the essays, even the first one about a now-obscure children's series that features a too good to be true boy called Charlie ("How Topsy Made Charlie Love Him," from the Better Homes and Gardens Story Book), which he analyzes from a developmental and a feminist perspective. The chapter "Giving Horatio Alger Goosebumps," supplements the Sands and Frank book referenced above with critical perspectives on both production and marketing and social contexts for YA series fiction. "Opposing War, Exploiting War: The Troubled Pacifism of Star Trek," should be read alongside Bartter's essay in Sullivan's collection, listed below. "Legends of the Fall: Going Not particularly Far Behind the Music," offer basic analyses of MTV and VH1 stories of rock star legends, asking basic questions about their accuracy and comparing different 'kinds' of stories told about these famous people. My favorite essay is "Even better than the Real Thing: Advertising, Music Videos, Postmodernism and (Eventually) Science Fiction." In this essay, he describes for us the similarities in the stories told within advertising on the media. Media-based advertising for products tells stories within which the products are set, just like music videos which are used to promote artists and to promote music sales, and film trailers use some of the same techniques to summarize or condense the film, telling a story about it that may or may not be true.
Westfahl makes a convincing argument for their inter-related development (similar to the critical argument made by Palumbo on comic books in the Sullivan collection) and this is only one of several insights provoked by this essay. As Westfahl's fifth through eleventh chapters emphasize, there are many more intersections between media which can be productively explored, from the realization of written as film to the expansion of television SF through written series fiction. More than any other sub genre, SF has adapted itself to the new media and made them an intimate link in the definition of the genre. The links between fiction and other popular culture phenomena are pervasive, fascinating, and in need of further attention. Thus, in addition to addressing age-based demarcations of SF, the critical works address defining moments in the history of SF are we know understand it's ability to expand and adapt to changing tastes, habits, and indeed needs, of its audience.
Westfahl does not attempt a summary chapter, but ends with an analysis of The Time Machine and its many permutations in cinematic productions, giving us, by example, a socio-historical perspective on the film industry that also reflects on the history of science fiction. Since Wells' story is so tied up with the history of SF as a genre and with all the media carrying the SF story, including radio, television and film, the final essay does give us some sort of summary in that it covers the earliest and the latest forms for the story.
Jan Bogstad, Reviewer