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Margaret Mary Baguley Margaret Mary Baguley i(18567879 works by)
Gender: Female
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Works By

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1 They Also Served: Nurses, the Great War, and Children's Picture Books Allison Millward, , Martin Kerby , Catherine Dewhirst , Margaret Mary Baguley , 2023 single work criticism
— Appears in: Journal of Popular Culture , vol. 56 no. 3-4 2023; (p. 704-718)

'British and Australian children's books about the Great War remain a steadfastly conservative example of popular culture, particularly when exploring war time nursing. The marginalized place of females in children's literature, the failure of the official histories to adequately acknowledge the unique experience of the nurses, and the popular focus on the battlefield have discouraged any sustained focus. This article will analyze how Hilary Robinson and Martin Impey (Peace Lily), Kate Simpson and Jess Racklyeft (Anzac Girl: The War Diaries of Alice Ross-King), and Mark Wilson (Rachel's War: The Story of an Australian WWI Nurse) have responded to this challenge.' (Publication abstract)
1 The Use of Images to Explore the Indigenous Experience of Conflict in Australian Children's Picturebooks Margaret Mary Baguley , Martin Kerby , 2023 single work criticism
— Appears in: Bookbird , vol. 61 no. 3 2023; (p. 55-64)

'Australian children's picturebook authors and illustrators who choose armed conflict as their subject matter inevitably grapple with the paradox that, while war is a central component of national identity, the experience of Indigenous peoples remains, at best, underrepresented. This article uses the ideational, interpersonal, and textual meta-functions developed by Clare Painter et al. to compare how the Indigenous experience of conflict is represented in the Australian children's picturebooks Alfred's War (Bin Salleh and Fry) and Multuggerah and the Sacred Mountain (Uhr and O'Halloran).' (Publication abstract)
1 Forging Truth from Facts : Trauma, Historicity and Australian Children's Picture Books Martin Kerby , Margaret Mary Baguley , 2020 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Lion and the Unicorn , September vol. 44 no. 3 2020; (p. 281-301) 'Though they can find themselves constrained by the imagined “demands of children’s literature as sanitary, benign, and didactic” (Tribunella 102), children’s picture book authors and illustrators regularly attempt to engage with “unimaginable, unspeakable, and un-representable horror” (Trezise 43). Whether it be in the form of genocide, war, persecution or displacement, they tend not to shy away from the atrocities of history when searching for subject matter. However, the balancing of the sanitary with the unimaginable demands a compromise. Authors and illustrators invariably soften, perhaps even distort the horror in their efforts to be morally instructive. In their creation of a “parable of war” (MacCallum-Stewart 177) they explore the underlying humanist principles of the stories they tell, rather than historical perspectives. This approach transforms historical particularities into “universals of human experience” (Stephens 238). Trauma is sometimes directly confronted, but this is the exception rather than the rule (Kertzer, “Anxiety” 208). Kidd contends that at “least some of the children’s literature of atrocity turns away from rather than confronts the difficulties of its subject matter, opting for simplistic narratives of character empowerment adapted from self-help literature” (185). For in any battle between hope and trauma, or at least the ones played out in children’s literature, the former usually emerges triumphant. As a result, books such as the three analyzed in this article are often very successful in exploring broader issues of personal morality, but they make for dubious history. The critical and commercial success of works that adopt this approach suggests that the book buying public share this preference for morality tales over historical accuracy.' (Introduction)
1 And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda : Australian Picture Books (1999–2016) and the First World War Martin Charles Kerby , Margaret Mary Baguley , Abbey MacDonald , 2019 single work criticism
— Appears in: Children's Literature in Education , vol. 50 no. 2 2019; (p. 91-109)

'Over the past two decades children’s picture books dealing with the Australian experience during the First World War have sought to balance a number of thematic imperatives. The increasingly sentimentalised construct of the Australian soldier as a victim of trauma, the challenge of providing a moral lesson that reflects both modern ideological assumptions and the historical record, and the traditional use of Australian war literature as an exercise in nation building have all exerted an influence on the literary output of a range of authors and illustrators. The number of publications over this period is proof of the enduring fascination with war as a topic as well as the widespread acceptance that this conflict has been profoundly significant in shaping Australian public and political culture and perceptions about national character and identity (Beaumont, 1995, p. xvii). As MacCallum-Stewart (2007, p. 177) argues, authors and illustrators must therefore balance notions of ‘respect’ for a national foundation myth with a ‘pity of war’ approach that reflects modern attitudes to conflict. Whatever their ideological commitment, many authors and illustrators respond to this challenge by adopting an approach that serves to indoctrinate readers into the Anzac tradition (Anzac refers to the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps raised for war in 1914. It has become a generic term for Australian and New Zealand soldiers. The Anzac tradition established at Gallipoli, Australia’s first major military campaign, has been traditionally viewed as the nation’s founding.'

Source: Publication blurb.
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