Picturing the Page: Illustrated Children’s Literature and Reading under Lenin and Stalin

“Megan Swift’s Picturing the Page is a welcome new addition to the research of illustrated children’s books and children’s reading. Picturing the Page ambitiously seeks to reconstruct the relationship between illustrated children’s books and children’s reading in the context of the Soviet literature curriculum and reading culture.” Larissa Rudova, Pomona College and Marina Balina, Wesleyan University, The Russian Review

"Swift's work is invaluable to an understanding of Soviet visual culture, thanks especially to its extensive illustrations, but it will also be of great interest to scholars of children's literature."

James H. McGavran III, Kenyon College, Children's Literature Association Quarterly

"Picturing the Page is an example of thorough interdisciplinary research written in an engaging manner, well supported with wonderful images."

Natallia Kabiak, University of Melbourne, Australian Slavonic and East European Studies

"Car c’est bien un autre mérite de cet ouvrage original, riche et stimulant, que d’ouvrir vers différents prolongements, alors même qu’il constitue en soi une réelle avancée dans la recherche sur le livre illustré pour enfants de l’époque soviétique, tant du point de vue des objets étudiés que de la démarche adoptée."

Cécile Pichon-Bonin, CNRS, Cahiers du monde russe

"Swift has created an intriguing masterpiece that will be an enjoyable read to anyone interested in children’s literature’s impact on society, Russian or otherwise."

Jennifer Ladwig, Publishing Research Quarterly

"In compelling prose, Megan Swift offers a kaleidoscopic vision of Soviet history through her focus on images that shift with the times at points of tension between the present and the past. With firm scholarly grounding, Picturing the Page closely examines visual detail and contextualizes works within the ideological intricacies of key periods to uncover and explain telling Soviet rereadings of classic texts."

Sara Pankenier Weld, Associate Professor of Germanic and Slavic Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara

"With impressive scholarship, Picturing the Page highlights both Russian and English-language materials, including critical monographs, periodicals, and rare illustrated books from the early revolutionary period."

Larissa Rudova, Professor of German and Russian, Pomona College