Acknowledgements

This project has evolved over the course of its development. My debts, therefore, are many. I owe much gratitude to my colleagues in the field of children’s literature research for all the stimulation and support they have offered over nearly two decades now. Among their number, I wish particularly to thank the editors of this series who have contributed much to this book. First and foremost, Maria Nikolajeva has been a font of knowledge, incisive reader, and longtime support. Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer also has been a keen influence and provocative reader. Nina Christensen is an inspiring and stimulating interlocutor in many realms. Elina Druker also has been a treasured colleague and collaborator over many years now.

I also wish to acknowledge many other colleagues from the former Nordic Network for Children’s Literature Research (NorChiLNet), including Janina Orlov, Maria Lassén-Seger, and Mia Österlund. I appreciate the contributions of many members of the International Research Society for Children’s Literature (IRSCL), such as Sandra Beckett, Clare Bradford, Victoria Flanagan, Vanessa Joosen, Bill Moebius, Kim Reynolds, David Rudd, Martina Seifert, and Jean Webb. I also have benefited from my involvement in the ASEEES Group Childhood in Eastern Europe, Eurasia, and Russia (ChEEER), formerly known as the Working Group for Russian Children’s Literature and Culture (WGRCLC).

In Russian Studies, I wish to acknowledge particularly the manifold contributions of Larissa Rudova and Marina Balina, who have been exemplary and generous colleagues. Jared Ash, Olga Bukhina, Monika Greenleaf, Grisha Freidin, Lazar Fleishman, Misha Gronas, Michael Patrick Hearn, Konstantine Klioutchkine, Ilya Kukulin, Yuri Leving, Mary Nicholas, Serguei Oushakine, Gabriella Safran, Barry Scherr, Sven Spieker, and Olga Voronina offered helpful advice. I also am indebted to Irina Arzamastseva, Valentin Golovin, Evgeny Kuleshov, Angela Lebedeva, Mikhail Lurie, Yakov Lurie, Svetlana Maslinskaya, Yuri Nechiporenko, Anna Senkina, and Inna Sergienko in Russia. The research for this book was supported by a Research Grant from the Friends of the Princeton University and by a Hellman Family Foundation Grant, and its realization by a University of California, Santa Barbara Academic Senate Faculty Research Grant. At the Cotsen Collection and Princeton University Library, I particularly wish to thank Andrea Immel for her assistance and support, as well as AnnaLee Pauls for many years of assistance. All these individuals have contributed to this book, but have no responsibility for its flaws.

Some material included in this book has been discussed or published previously in English, Russian, Swedish, or Danish. I have presented on these subjects at Pomona College, Princeton University, and Rutgers University, as well as at conferences of ASEEES, IRSCL, and NorChiLNet; at Linköping University, Stanford University, and the University of California at Santa Barbara; and in St. Petersburg and Moscow, where colleagues have offered many useful suggestions. Multiple references are made to my first monograph Voiceless Vanguard: The Infantilist Aesthetic of the Russian Avant-Garde, which was published by Northwestern University Press (Weld 2014c) and draws on my earlier dissertation (Pankenier 2006b). At times the discussion, particularly in Chapter 2, relates to a chapter of mine in the volume Children’s Literature and the Avant-Garde, edited by Elina Druker and Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer and published by John Benjamins in this same series, Children’s Literature, Culture, and Cognition (Weld 2015). Portions of the introduction are scheduled to appear in The Brill Companion to Soviet Children’s Literature and Film edited by Olga Voronina currently in press. A portion of Chapter 3 appeared earlier in the volume Expectations and Experiences: Children, Childhood, and Children’s Literature (Pankenier 2007a) published by Pied Piper Publishing. Much of the material in Chapter 4 was previously published in the journal Tidskrift för litteraturvetenskap in Swedish (Weld 2014a) and appeared in Russian in Lifshits/Losev/Loseff: Sbornik pamiati L’va Loseva edited by Misha Gronas and Barry Scherr and published by Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie in Moscow in 2017. Materials discussed in Chapter 8 were previously examined in Voiceless Vanguard (Weld 2014c). Much of the material in Chapter 9 was published in the Princeton University Library Chronicle (Pankenier 2008). Portions of Chapter 10 were published in English in Voiceless Vanguard (Weld 2014c) and in Danish in Nedslag i børnelitteraturforskningen (Pankenier 2007b). Portions from Chapter 11 were published previously in the Russian journal Detskie chteniia (Weld 2014b). These materials are reprinted with permission. As for images within this book, I have done my utmost to trace all copyright holders in order to credit them properly.

As this project reaches its conclusion, I must first thank David Weld, my beloved helpmate in life and work, who is my greatest aid and support in all things. I also am ever grateful to my father, David Pankenier, who has been a guide and editorial eye for me in all things, including academia. I extend my appreciation to all members of my Pankenier, Wannberg, Weld, and Roosevelt families. Finally, I wish to particularly acknowledge the contributions of my mother Birgitta Wannberg, who has assisted me in realizing this project, always has been present at any time of trial, and helped this work of mine to be born, since it has always been that, what is my burden to bear is also hers. It is to her, who read me picturebooks as a child, that I dedicate this book. Lately her greatest help has been by lovingly absorbing the energies of her grandchildren. It is they, my own small children, Theodore, Maia, and Cornelius, who in their exuberant vivacity bring me my greatest joys and whose love makes everything worthwhile.