"An important addition to children's literature criticism and should be acquired by all libraries collecting in that area." -- Choice
Chapter 1 Introduction; Part 1 Before Tom Brown; Chapter 2 Anxious Proxies and Independent Girls, Charles Lamb; Chapter 3 The First Tom Brown, DorothyKilner; Chapter 4 Telling Tales about Telling Tales, E. J.May; Chapter 5 At Midcentury, Mary MarthaSherwood; Part 2 During the Heyday of the Canonical Story; Chapter 6 Crossing Gender with Race, Edward Everett Hale; Chapter 7 Crossing Gender with Ethnicity, Elizabeth Eiloart; Chapter 8 Sensationalizing the School Story, Ellen Wood; Chapter 9 Domesticating the School Story, Louisa May Alcott; Chapter 10 Engendering the School Story, Julia A. Mathews; Part 3 In the Twentieth Century; Chapter 11 Policing the Borders, Satirizing the State, H. G. Wells; Chapter 12 Approaching High Seriousness, D. Wynne Willson;