ABSTRACT
Food occupies a conspicuous place in the broader scope of children’s literature. The Anglo-American context, in particular, has produced a plenitude of narratives where food plays an important part in not only constructing relationships between characters and story, but also as the projection of important social and cultural frameworks. From the mid-nineteenth century onwards into the twentieth – a time that has commonly become known as the ‘Golden Age’ of the genre (1850–1918) – children’s literature has continued to provide us with a series of highly memorable, and recognizable, moments in which food and consumption are central. From Alice’s tea parties in Wonderland (Carroll 1865), to The Wind in the Willow’s picnics by the river (Grahame 1908), from Enyd Blyton’s fanciful celebrations (1922–75) to J.K. Rowling’s plentiful and magical feasts at Hogwarts (2001–11), the iconic value of food scenes in children’s literature is difficult to ignore. For its part, the scholarship on this topic has not been remiss in identifying the important part played by food in children’s literature, especially as the post-1800-era is concerned. Important examples of scholarship such as Kara K. Keeling and Scott T. Pollard’s edited volume Critical Approaches to Food in Children’s Literature (2009), Carolyn Daniel’s Voracious Children: Who Eats Whom in Children’s Literature (2006), and Feast of Famine: Food and Children’s Literature (2014), edited by Bridget Carrington and Jennifer Harding, have been instrumental in highlighting the presence of food in children’s literature as connected to social, cultural, and political frameworks. Through these investigations, food emerges as an important ‘cultural signifier’, which is “fundamental to the plot and character interactions” (Keeling and Pollard 2009, 4). Collectively, many examples from this and other scholarship draw attention to food’s role as part of both historical and narrative structures connected to the context of children’s literature, drawing attention to matters of corporeality, gender identity, sexuality, post/coloniality, class, and national identity.
