American Iconology: New Approaches to Nineteenth-Century Art and Literature Book

In his study of the discourses surrounding boyhood, Kidd explores American literary and popular understandings and creations of boyology and the feral tale. As I am interested in the construction of African American boyhood and identity, his argument that "normal" boyhood is constructed as white, middle class and feral tales often featuring exoticized portrayals of boys (think Mowgli from Kipling's The Jungle Book or the Christ-like Elian Gonzolez whose story made headlines when he traveled in shark-infested waters from Cuba to the US in the late 1999s) are of most use for/interest to me. His text provides a wealth of criticism on material from the late nineteenth century to today, though I would have liked his take on how some of the popular understandings of boyhood have made their way into contemporary children's literature. He does this a bit with his discussions ofTeen Woolf, but I would have liked more in the last chapter. I find it interesting that he ends the book by stating: "I've written Making American Boys: Boyology and the Feral Tale as a way of working through my growing ambivalence about boyology in all its forms, chief among them literature. To the degree that it's possible, I'd like now to leave boyology behind" (190).