Liminal Spaces in Children's and Young Adult Literature: Stories From the In BetweenBy Mark I.West, Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. 2024. 216 pp. <scp>ISBN</scp>: 978‐1‐66693‐887‐6

This collection of 15 essays focuses on the topic of liminality in children's literature. Editor Mark I. West situates the volume in the context of another recent anthology, Elizabeth Goodenough's Secret Spaces of Childhood (2023), in which famous writers and artists reflect on the parallel universes and spatial alterity of childhood. Of special interest to scholars researching this topic is West's discussion of Michael Joseph's chapter “Liminality” in Keywords for Children's Literature (2021), which identifies the turn of the 21st century as the point when the study of liminal spaces in children's literature gained broader interest. This is an interesting observation considering that liminal spaces, whether they be imaginary, geographical, social, psychological, or cultural, have been abundant in literature for both adults and children for centuries. However, as the contributing authors discuss from various points of view, the concept of liminality is a constituent part of human social organization and the development of human cognition. Thus, the volume contains many references and discussions of the pioneering studies by ethnographer Arnold van Gennep and anthropologist Victor Turner on social liminality and the rites of passage accompanying transitional stages in human life (birth, puberty, marriage, and death), which are recognized in all cultures. Helpfully, each contributor offers a specific definition of the kind of in-between spaces they focus on in their chapters. These include both physical spaces like the library, which is neither home nor school, but a safe place to immerse oneself in the quiet world of reading and the imagined and imaginary spaces in literature that evoke the reader's sense of wonder, adventure, and comfort. The imaginary spaces found in literature may indeed, as West points out, help children and young adults heal from the negative effects of racism, bullying, and domestic instability and learn how to cope with them. Identity formation, body changes, and sexual awakening are central aspects of growing up. Several chapters examine how literary characters find themselves betwixt and between identities, the expectations of family and social norms, and feel that they don't fit in. For example, Katherine Kittredge and Paige D'Encarnacao discuss several of these points in their co-authored paper “Asian Americans Find Liminal Spaces to Combat Racism and Erasure” (57–78), where D'Encarnacao, who is Kittredge's student, comments on the importance of diverse racial representation in children's literature. D'Encarnacao, who comes from a mixed-race family, describes how the media and literature she grew up with depicted white characters in the main roles. She observes, “I wasn't exposed to stories that could have helped me navigate the challenges of my identity” (59). Several other chapters emphasize the important role of children's and young adult literature in building social and cognitive skills by drawing young readers into fictional universes where characters must navigate their way through everything from everyday problems with friends to major existential challenges on the outer boundaries of the universe. Teachers and parents will undoubtedly find these discussions illuminating and perhaps even inspiring for selecting meaningful reading materials for their students and their own children. Liminal Spaces in Children's and Young Adult Literature is structured around essays that focus on themes and genres in Part One, and essays examining specific novels in Part Two. Most of the close readings focus on well-known books, such as Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are, Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, C. S. Lewis's Narnia series, Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows, Enid Bagnold's National Velvet and its film adaptation, Paul Curtis's Bud, Not Buddy, Katherine Paterson's Bridge to Terabithia, and Angeline Boulley's Firekeeper's Daughter. Terry Lindvall's chapter “Secret Gardens and Spiritual Gestation” stands out for its in-depth analysis of garden metaphors in C. S. Lewis's books and Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden. The enclosed garden, and the passages into it and out of it, is one of literature's most potent tropes for coming-of-age, female fecundity, male adventure, pleasures and dangers, and the possibilities of code-switching and role-playing associated with entering a secret space. Among its many symbolic and spiritual aspects, the garden is also the physical manifestation of human attempt to control and organize nature, not unlike the way society tries to socialize children and control their impulses. Liminal Spaces in Children's and Young Adult Literature throws open many portals and doors into such metaphorical gardens of possibilities.