Thursday, November 12, 2020

Cheek by Jowl, by Ursula K. Le Guin

This is a slim collection of eight talks and essays, as the cover notes, "on how & why fantasy matters."  But the book is dominated by the title essay, "Cheek by Jowl," which takes up almost half the volume and is a thoughtful and critical study of the roles of animals in children's literature. As with most of Le Guin's essays, there are many insightful and quotable observations. I'll cite just one here, "To conflate fantasy with immaturity is a rather sizable error."  The collection came out in 2009.

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