A 9 minute read.
Madeleine L’Engle is a well known children’s author who won a Newbery Medal for A Wrinkle in Time. (The Newbery Medal is an award for the most distinguished children’s books in the U.S.) She sometimes teaches fiction writing workshops, and during one, a woman asked if L’Engle was going to teach them to write for children. L’Engle pointed out that she had been teaching the woman to write, and said, “Don’t you write when you write for children? It isn’t different.” Later in the essay where she tells this story, she argues, “the techniques of fiction are the techniques of fiction, and they hold as true for Beatrix Potter as they do for Dostoevsky.” Other well known authors–Maruice Sendak, J.R.R. Tolkein, and C.S. Lewis–have all expressed the same idea.
People who don’t write for children often look upon that job as a fallback or a last resort, something writers end up doing when they can’t get published or make a living writing adult fiction. And this is probably true for some authors. I have read many children’s novels of questionable quality, one with so many exclamation points that my arm hair stood on end. I think of these as cotton candy books. They can be fun or even delicious for a moment, but few people would refer to them as good, and even if consumed in large amounts they leave one feeling unsatisfied.
I’ve heard it said that children don’t need good books because they don’t care about good writing the way many grown-ups (especially grown-ups in academic circles) do. Which is true to a certain extent: my ten-year-old brother consumes books with titles like Paws off, Cheddarface! faster than his breakfast, reading so quickly that my parents are convinced he doesn’t see most of the words. He certainly does not appreciate good writing the way I, a college student who has studied writing for many years, do.
Critics who treat adult as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves.
C.S. LEWIS
People are born without academic mastery. No baby leaves the womb knowing who C.S. Lewis is or how to write a grammatically perfect sentence. If I asked an infant what two plus two was, he would respond with a gurgle or a yawn, or perhaps fall asleep. Adults have to teach children almost everything, and if I want my kids to have high standards, I must show them what is great and what is not. If I only feed them cotton candy, they will never appreciate the quality of a flavorful burrito. So children are younger, and don’t understand many things in the world, but that doesn’t necessitate a separate standard for the quality of books they consume. If a book isn’t good enough for me, it isn’t good enough for my ten-year-old brother. And perhaps if I think I am too good to read a children’s book, I am adopting a childish mindset. As C.S. Lewis wrote, “Critics who treat adult as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence.” Adults who think children’s books are below them are acting like the middle schooler who refuses to hug his mom because only babies do that.
Though children are young and lack knowledge, they comprehend more than most grown-ups give them credit for. It is easy to think that because children have not experienced most of life, they have not experienced suffering, and so should be shielded from hardship. This protective instinct is good–there are many things children should not know. But kids feel real pain and fear, and they need help understanding it. They need to be taught how to respond.
One of my brothers, when he was quite young, became convinced there was a witch in his room who might swoop down and tickle him at any moment during the night. I was four years older than him, and could clearly see the absurdity of this idea, but to him the fear was so real he tried to sleep with one eye open. This might seem a silly fear compared to many grown-up terrors like war and rape and sickness, but the feeling in his small chest was just as great as the feeling in ours–he was too afraid to close his eyes at night. This is why Kate DiCamillo, a children’s author who won a Newbery Medal for her book The Tale of Despereaux, has spoken about the importance of being candid with children about the complexity of the world. She says, “The world is a beautiful place. It’s a terrifying place. It’s a place filled with sorrow. But you also have to talk about the sad things, because you need to be able to find that in a book, because it makes you feel less alone.” Many children have the privilege of growing up in a safe home, and many don’t. All have difficulty in their lives, and books are a source of solidarity and comfort.
N.D. Wilson, a children’s author chiefly known for his bestselling 100 Cupboards trilogy, pointed out that children live vicariously through the books they read. Children relate to fictional characters, and learn from them. They experience fear and bravery, and learn kindness and empathy, through story as well as in real life. When asked why he writes scary stories for children, Wilson said, “Every one will have struggles and ultimately, every one will face death and loss.” A book can help children walk the scary road of life and inspire hope in their little hearts. A book can assure them that while they feel small and hopeless and clumsy, they can have courage. Katherine Rundell (best known for her award-winning children’s novel Impossible Creatures) wrote, “To put a child character in danger is in a way to honor them–to believe in their capacity to rise to meet it–and the child reader, in their self-identification, is honored alongside.” When a child sees a character like them overcome adversity, they start to believe they can overcome adversity too.
To put a child character in danger is in a way to honor them–to believe in their capacity to rise to meet it–and the child reader, in their self-identification, is honored alongside.
KATHERINE RUNDELL
Take, for example, Kate DiCamillo’s The Tale of Despereaux. Many characters in the book have suffered horribly. The protagonist, a little mouse with big ears who is ostracized for liking to read and sit in the sunshine, falls in love with the human princess and is banished to the dungeon (which is full of murderous rats). After he escapes, he is attacked by a girl named Mig, whose father sold her for a red tablecloth and whose uncle boxed her ears so frequently they look like cauliflowers. Then the princess and Mig are kidnapped by an evil rat, and Despereaux–after failing to enlist the king’s help–returns to the dungeon, alone, to rescue them.
Clearly, DiCamillo does not suggest that everything will always be fine–her story shows children that life will hurt them, and terrible things will happen–but she does suggest that people should not give up. Her books contain hope (something strong that people must fight for) not optimism (a blind belief that the world will always go the way one wants). DiCamillo acknowledges the light where it shines without promising that it will always be there.
Most of the essays, books, fiction, and poetry presented in a college English major wallow in a pit of pain and darkness. It’s as if authors who write for grown-ups say, the world is an evil place; let us be somber and rub the pain in our hearts and faces so we never forget that evil consumes us all. And they are celebrated for being realistic. So am I lying to a child when I tell them that there is always reason to hope?
I do not think so, because hope is a complex thing. Hope is not a promise that it’ll all work out–it’s a perseverance when it doesn’t all work out. And few people want to read stories with sad endings, because we live them all the time. Most look for stories to fortify them to continue on. Without hope, there is seldom a good reason to live.
There is an appropriate way to write about darkness for children. DiCamillo does it very well because while she doesn’t make light of evil, she uses humor to make it less depressing. In The Tale of Despereaux, the villain’s origin story involves a rat falling into a bowl of soup, the queen dying of shock, and the king banning everything soup-related (including spoons) from the castle. This is funny. Children–most children, anyway–are not cynics. Their laughter is not a despairing, hollow laughter; instead, it bubbles from a place of joy. Not all children’s books must be funny, but the best ones make readers laugh. Not all children’s books must have happy endings–some do not, and some, like The Tale of Despereaux, hint that happy endings are not always possible–but the best ones make readers hope. The characters in children’s books need to stand up to evil, otherwise the young readers will be left wondering if they can stand up to evil. A child will not be helped by a book without hope, just as a grown-up will not be helped by a book without hope.
So children’s authors, and perhaps all authors, should write about evil for the right reasons–to fortify their readers, big and small, to press on. Stories that deal with darkness are often the most impactful, but authors should not become overzealous and write about darkness and danger just to keep their readers interested. As N.D. Wilson puts it, “the goal is to put the darkness in its place.” Rather than tell stories to scar children, tell stories to help them sleep at night.
Ellen Sheehy 