Children's Literature

In a mere 150 pages of text, Sara Austin's book demonstrates how "the role of monster in children's culture, as objects of both fear and identification," has changed since the 1950s in the United States (1). The text includes an introduction, four chapters that proceed chronologically, and a conclusion. The author grounds her ideas in three texts: The Dark Fantastic: Race and the Imagination from Harry Potter to the Hunger Games by Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, Skin Shows: Gothic Horror and the Technology of Monsters by Jack Halberstam, and "Monster Culture (Seven Theses)" by Jeffrey Jerome Cohen. Much of the Introduction is spent introducing the ideas of these thinkers: "Monstrous Youth takes Halberstam's, Cohen's, and Thomas's claims about monstrous bodies and the cultural connections between monsters and children as a foundation for the role of monsters in children's culture, specifically the cultural role that monsters assume when standing for certain types of child or adolescent bodies" (4). Austin moves on to differentiating her own thinking by explaining how this book extends the thinking of others "by exploring how the monster as a figure in gothic and horror texts becomes a metaphor for identity and difference within children's culture" (11–12). She then lays out three points that will be shown in variations throughout the chapters that follow: "Monster texts are used to frighten children by policing borders of identity, to instruct children on the preferred embodiment of their historical moment, and to present opportunities for child autonomy by excluding adults from the marketing and consumption of certain texts" (4). The introduction further details the author's choices with regard to structure, as well as the primary argument for each chapter and the cultural products that will be under examination; these include books (both chapter and picture) as well as comics, games, films, and toys. Moving into the body of the text, the reader knows exactly what to expect. Each chapter has [End Page 233] a number of subheadings, usually focused on a close examination of a cultural artifact.

Chapter 1 centers on teen experience in the 1950s, using the concept of Enfreakment, a process detailed by disability studies scholar Rosemarie Garland-Thomson: "Enfreakment works to separate the viewer from the exhibited, and to construct the viewer as a normal body through comparison [and] … is a necessary step in creating cultural as well as textual monsters" (19). The author expands the use of this term to include teen and child bodies that are othered or made threatening. The chapter uses EC Comics and American International Pictures (AIP) to demonstrate how fears of social change "led to adult attempts to suppress these materials in hope of preserving the status quo" (21). Ironically, this caused teens (and teen-centric narratives) to align themselves with the monster and created "one of the most potent symbols within youth culture" (21). The discussion of EC Comics foregrounds much that has already been said about the social panic of the 1950s and Fredric Wertham's The Seduction of the Innocent (1954) and just how much of the appeal of horror comics came from how completely adults reviled them. This section puts together the comics and Enfreakment as follows: "using enfreakment as a means to draw in teen readers may have worked because this group felt largely out of place in early 1950s society, and the comics assured them that, even if they were a distinct class from children and adults, they were not, in fact, monsters" (28). Austin then focuses on juvenile delinquency and argues that the adult fear that young readers would align themselves with the monster of the comics resulted in "the adoption of the monster as a symbol of agency and defiance in children's and young adult culture" (30). The great irony here is that by positioning adolescents "as either vulnerable or grotesque," adults helped to create circumstances where the monster came to be a symbol of adolescent rebellion. What follows is an examination of AIP films such as I Was a Teenage Frankenstein (1957), Blood of Dracula (1957), and I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957), all of which have "the same basic plotline, creating sympathy for the teenage monster, and then destroying both him and his adult creator in the end" (42). Films such as these question the legitimacy of adult power and position the teens as able to recognize an oppressive power structure (represented by the scientists of the films) but unable to affect any change. Austin concludes that these films create a space where teens can identify with the monstrous, which adults fear, and thus provide some sense of agency for teen viewers. The chapter ends, [End Page 234] as they all do, with a summary of its various arguments and a preview of the arguments to be made in the next.

Before summarizing chapter 2, I'd like to take a moment to comment on the structure of Monstrous Youth. There are extensive footnotes throughout, both chatty and informational, which I find easier than flipping to endnotes. As a reader, I also appreciate when a text offers me guidance and coherence, making ties between ideas explicit and reminding me how ideas discussed previously are connected to what is currently under discussion. However, I think this text goes too far; I was reminded of my students' writing when they follow their high school teacher's advice: tell them what you'll say; say it; tell them what you said. Not only the beginnings and endings of chapters, but the beginnings and endings of sections within the chapters repeat both the overall arguments and the more specific ones just completed and give a preview of what subject is next. It was all a bit much, and I feel certain that if the bulk of this were eliminated, the book would be twenty or more pages shorter.

The artifacts under examination in chapter 2 are picture books from the 1960s and 1970s; here the author argues that picture books "code Black children as the racial Other without directly representing Black child bodies" (51). The primary texts include There's a Nightmare in My Closet (Mayer, 1968); The Something (Babbitt, 1970); and My Mama Says There Aren't Any Zombies, Ghosts, Vampires, Creatures, Demons, Monsters, Fiends, Goblins or Things (Viorst, illustrated by Chorao, 1973). Until the mid-1960s, books depicting Black children simply were not available (with few exceptions, like Snowy Day). The author ties these circumstances to the nation's racial unrest and the Civil Rights Movement. In these stories, all by white authors, monsters are solitary outsiders "who depend on the charity of the white child protagonist" (54). The books suggest that racial bias is personal rather than institutional and that one can befriend the monster; however, there are problems, not the least of which is the spectacle of the monster's body and vastly unequal friendships that are formed between child and monster. Sesame Street marks a change as the Muppet monsters there "work alongside actors of color, expanding the narrative of friendship to include multiple forms of difference" (72–3). In this TV program, the white children are asked to move beyond tolerating the monster. The chapter finishes with The Monster at the End of This Book (Stone, 1971), in which Grover plays both the monster and the frightened child and thus "moves beyond the sameness imagery and interracial friendships of race-liberal [End Page 235] picture books, illustrating a larger shift to 1970s anti-racist children's literature, which values diverse voices and lifelike characters" (74).

As I attended high school in the first half of the 1980s and college in the second and was a confirmed Dungeons & Dragons player during that time (as I still am), I was particularly looking forward to chapter 3, focused on the moral panics of the 1980s. While that game is referenced a few times, the chapter really focuses on the Garbage Pail Kids trading cards and other toys that feature monsters. Here the broad argument is that the process of enfreakment aimed at teens in the 1950s was now marketed to a younger audience and, as a result, "monstrous identification [became] a way to expand economic agency" for children (79). As for adults, the author argues, "Instead of social fears that preadolescents would engage in sex and violence, parents were concerned that even detailed knowledge could compromise a child's innocence. Moreover, panics of the decade suggest that childhood ignorance and innocence had already been compromised, and that parents were simply unaware" (79–80). Thus, the dynamic of the 1950s was repeated: monstrosity, particularly "narrative, creative, and collectible" monstrous toys (94), was used to create adult-free spaces and construct "a liberatory position for children to occupy" (80). Monster toys used abjection to keep parents away. (Incidentally, the subheading "Toys That Ooze" is my favorite in the entire book.) This cultural moment featured the child not only as monster but also "the child as victim of the monster" (109), and this combination is centered in the first part of the next chapter.

As seen in the previous chapter, as the text moves along through time, the cultural products in focus become more specific, so rather than broad categories (AIP films or picture book trends), cultural movements are connected to specific items (Garbage Pail Kids cards or Buffy the Vampire Slayer). The cultural movements, too, become more focused. The central thesis for this chapter on the 1990s is "that the monsters of the decade reflect the political and cultural concern about teen sexuality, mimic the language of abstinence-only, or sexual risk avoidance (SRA) education, create didactic works to instruct children and teens … and label those who fail to conform as monstrous" (113). The text quotes extensively from specific curriculums and presents several close readings of particular episodes of Buffy and The Vampire Diaries to demonstrate these connections. This analysis of vampires seems a retread of thinking that has been around for a while with the SRA component added: that many vampire stories are coded tales of [End Page 236] the dangers of sexuality; that boys are depicted as "sexual aggressors and girls as the sexual gatekeepers"; or that women enjoying a vampiric encounter can be read as rape metaphor (121). That said, the SRA addition is interesting, and reading the quotations from the curriculum (something I'm too old to have encountered) is shocking and provides some insight. As Buffy the Vampire Slayer ran from 1997 to 2003, the final episodes are used as a bridge to the next point.

Chapter 4 has two distinct halves, and I don't see why it wasn't two distinct chapters, as the second half moves from the 1990s to the mid-2000s, taking Twilight as its central text. Austin writes, "I argue that unlike monster media of previous decades, post-Twilight media does not exclude adults or make them the enemy, but depicts adults who accept and support young people's agency through monstrous parenting practices" (113). This radical departure from all that has gone before needs a stronger explanation grounded in culture. I'm not entirely clear on the why behind this shift, but the author makes the nature of the shift clear: "What I believe Twilight adds to this list of monstrous possibilities is the revelation that monstrousness need not remain in childhood" (135–36). Austin follows the discussion of cultural products aimed at teens with one focused on artifacts produced for younger audiences, specifically the Vampirina books. As with Twilight, these work toward "normalizing monstrous families and suggesting that parents who identify with the monstrous raise emotionally healthy children" (143). The study ends on a hopeful note, underscoring the idea that the increase in representation and inclusiveness is a cultural good. A short conclusion follows with a brief examination of more recent cultural products (the film Monsters, Inc. and Mattel's Monster High Doll collection) and reiteration of the book's overall point: "a discussion of monsters as a metaphor, not only for the shifting boundaries of culturally acceptable childhood, but also for how real children might use the consumption of and identification with media as a social and cultural tool to expand that identification" (156).

On the whole, this slim book is readable, informative, and makes a clear argument; while I'm not certain what use an undergraduate would have for the text, it could certainly be read by one. Yet, as a professional in the field, I never felt I was reading something that lacked nuance. I do wish some of the resources were more recent; for instance, Nina Auerbach (1995) is not "current" with regard to vampire studies, and monster studies goes well beyond Cohen's essay (121). Still, my review copy is extensively marked, not only for content, but because I liked [End Page 237] particular lines or because something triggered a thought. I feel certain that I will incorporate some of the ideas here in my young adult literature course, and to me, that's where the value of this book lies.