The Republic of Childhood: A Critical Guide to Canadian Children’s Literature in English by Sheila A. Egoff

Sheila Egoff’s valuable and widely read study of Canadian children’s literature in English, first published in 1967, has been extensively revised and expanded and includes discussions of books published to October 1974.
Although Canadian literature for adults has seen a sharp increase in production since the middle sixties, there has been no corresponding increase in the publication of books for children. Nevertheless, notable gains have been made in Indian and Eskimo legends, fantasy, biography, and picture-books, and the body of Canadian children’s books in English is now both substantial and of wide interest.
The new books discussed provide ample material for the kind of illuminating, frank comments that were enjoyed in the first edition. These are enriched and objectified by