Like the adoring fan he is, though, Handy brings out the best sides of the books he describes. His argument for why he hasn’t included any books from the current boom in children’s literature (except for occasional asides about Harry Potter) similarly feels arbitrary and thin. Given that Handy is publishing a book about children’s literature, not discussing it at the dinner table, it doesn’t seem too much to ask that he look a little deeper when his own perspective runs dry. Handy might have consulted any of the prominent children’s librarians who would be ready to share their insights. He hasn’t chosen to include the opinions of any children other than his own, and a side consequence of his endearingly conversational tone is occasional thoughtlessness. Though it’s a fun journey, it’s a little unclear whom this book is for: Handy is an editor at Vanity Fair, not a children’s literature scholar, and it sometimes shows. He’s a perceptive and affable close reader. Though it would be easy to fall into either rapture or diatribe, Handy treats his literary subjects like family members, with admiration and infuriation and love. a clear-eyed and often hilarious deep dive into some old standbys of children’s literature. After making a series of clever observations, Handy can’t resist capping them with a silly hat. But as the book goes on, these analogies increasingly become a tiresome nervous tic. One of Handy’s strengths is that his brain tends toward unlikely analogies. He’s got a magpie’s eye for odd and shiny details. His analyses are affectionate and often eccentric. Handy quotes liberally from each book he admires, and he curates those passages beautifully, allowing readers both literary pleasure and a kind of time travel.
Why the members of Handy’s brain trust didn’t tell him to cut out the excessive antics, I have no clue. The result is very pleasing to read, when it isn’t frustratingly glib, which I regret to report is too often. Instead, Wild Things is relaxed, discursive and personal, a survey course centering on the writers to whom Handy especially responds. If you ever wondered, for example, why a surprising number of children’s authors are childless, do not look for theories here.
Handy does not offer a kind of string theory for the universe of children’s classics, trying to reconcile competing visions of what motivated their authors or what makes kids respond to them.
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