A couple of treats

a slideshow of modern illustrations of children’s classics, from Walker Books.

And a rather less sweet reflection: Hilary Mantel’s ‘Cinderella in Autumn‘.

Enjoy our course’s  Holiday week.

When Uncles and Aunts were the Wild Things

“Where the Wild Things Are” : book,  animated short, children’s opera, film, video game,  and oh dear  novelisation. Are we in the process of seeing it become a modern fairy tale: scary, weird, and thoroughly commoditised?

To the flurry of discussion about whether the film is suitable for children (see here for instance), the book’s author has given a robust response:

What do you say to parents who think the Wild Things film may be too scary?
Sendak: I would tell them to go to hell. That’s a question I will not tolerate.

Because kids can handle it?
Sendak: If they can’t handle it, go home. Or wet your pants. Do whatever you like. But it’s not a question that can be answered.

But in an  interview recorded back in 1986 with America’s National Public Radio, Sendak said of his book:  ‘children are not afraid of them [the monsters] because Max is not afraid of them.’

I thought the interview made fascinating listening. Sendak had a sickly childhood, relatively unprotected by immigrant parents who were themselves vulnerable, but even so he was surely not completely unusual in finding adults ‘awful.. mostly dreadful’ and that ‘being a child was even worse… a creature without power, without pocket money, or escape routes’. He saw Peter Pan and detested it as sentimental – ‘The wish is to get out [of childhood]‘. He denies that his books have morals – he seeks to amuse, entertain, distract.

As a child, he himself was terrified of the vacuum cleaner (the way that bag inflated..) and of the Invisible Man because how could you be reassured that he wasn’t actually there? He recalls his childhood perspective: those Uncles and Aunts, seen with a child’s eye, are potential monsters. They say things like ‘How big you are, how fat you’ve got, we could eat you up.’ And how ugly the relatives are! Children can be ‘monstrously cruel about physical defects.’

And if all this doesn’t scare you,  try taking a look at the Wild Things  fashion collection.

Literature for children or for adults?

In Block 1 week 2 of our course, students are asked to think about what defines or characterises children’s literature.

Co-incidentally,  a book has been submitted for a children’s book prize that is also raising this issue. The National Book Foundation (’60 Years of Honoring Great American Books’) 2009 shortlist is here.  Here’s a summary of  discussion (controversy seems too strong a word) from a US blog:

Since these finalists were announced yesterday, people have been wondering how STITCHES — conceived of and published as a book for adults — ended up in this category. Is it because David Small is best known as a creator of children’s books? Because the “graphic novel” style resembles a book for young readers rather than adults? Because this autobiography mostly concerns Small’s childhood and teenage years? From what I’ve read on the net today, STITCHES was nominated for the youth award because that’s the category in which Norton, the book’s publisher, submitted it. That’s funny…they published it as an adult book.

None of these reasons seem particularly relevant, do they? But, for us, a very relevant conundrum!

Getting lost in the woods

You know how it is: you start thinking about something (Little Red Riding Hood, for instance) and suddenly it’s everywhere. There must be a word for that.

There have been innumerable re-tellings of LRRH, it seems. It’s no kindness to send you to this article (restricted access – but you can get there with your OU login) examining some Victorian versions – it’s very long, and unnecessary for TMA1. But there, I couldn’t resist it. Don’t go there! You could get lost for weeks…Anthony Browne’s Into the Forest on the other hand is wonderfully brief: new to me, and I was interested by the (sort of conflicting) Amazon.com reviews by the School Library Journal and the American Library Association. And their comments on Browne’s artistry might come in handy for Block 5 (Words and Pictures).

But what are fairy tales for? The wonderfully entitled ‘Breezes from Wonderland’ blog helpfully alluded to the Bettelheim (week 3) interpretation of fairy tales:

This week, in my course on the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen, we read Bruno Bettelheim on the uses of enchantment and what he calls the “struggle for meaning.” Robert Darnton’s famous essay “Peasants Tell Tales” has the subtitle “The Meaning of Mother Goose.” The psychoanalyst and the historian provide competing models for constructing the “meaning” of fairy tales, with one arguing that children make psychological sense on their own of fairy tales, and the other making the case for the fairy tales as repositories of folk wisdom and programs for survival.

The posting is also picking up on another ‘competing model’ for the purpose of fairy tales: some psychologists’ research reported in The Guardian* that experience of the surreal sends our brains back to reality with a hunger to make sense of our surroundings.

On a much simpler level, I take  comfort in the idea that ‘reading for pleasure’ is suggested as  a predictor of success in life.

* Edit: also reported in the NY Times:

“We channel the feeling [of disorientation] into some other project, and it appears to improve some kinds of learning.”

Retelling Zipes

Imagine I’m a fairy tale, one of a very large family.

Once upon a time, I and my family travelled around from hearth to hearth by word of mouth to peasants who learned from us to dream of wonders. We continued to do so but in the 15^th century  some of us found our way into print. How amazed I was as my distant cousins put on airs, and spoke to the aristocracy and middle classes.

Even the wealthy like to dream of wonders, and it looked to me as if some of my family simply dressed up their wonders to suit their new world. But others put on more sober clothes and became teachers, or took pay from the rich and powerful, making sure that their listeners learned the lessons they were supposed to learn. Some even joined the church, and coloured their stories with Christian characters. Though I’ve also been amused to see how some of the Church stories in their turn ran away, changed their clothes, and started to intermarry with my family.

Of course we have changed with the times.  I knew little originally of town life, religious conflict, or peasant uprisings; but I clothed myself with what I found around me.  Not always beautifully but then it’s not my job to be beautiful, or to watch over the sensitivities of my listeners, old or young.  It’s my job to entertain, isn’t it?

Well, that was my thinking. Then everything was overturned. My French cousins  took up with aristocratic women and by the mid 17^th century there was no stopping them. They became fashionable, settled in print, and defined the job quite differently, becoming tutors to the gentry. They despatched their offspring across Europe, to speak in their languages, even if simply and sometimes just to the children. As offspring have to, they earned their keep where they could, fitting in with the Puritans and governesses in England – though I’m happy to say they did not have it all their own way. The older family members learned to survive, in cheap print.

Things changed again in the 19^th century. Some got a little bigheaded when taken up by the intellectuals.  Still, though, the old family continued, relying on their entertainment value to appeal to the younger listeners. I took the main chance and went into print with Andersen. I had to tidy myself up a little for the nursery but I was allowed to keep my colourful clothes. It was worth taking Andersen’s pay: I learned some accomplishments and travelled across Europe and America.

Well, things have changed radically.  My clothes! You cannot begin to imagine how much pleasure I’ve taken in the different outfits I’ve been given.  I admit sometimes I feel a little old hat alongside the younger generation – for them, anything goes, and sometimes they eclipse me totally. But now and then I happen alongside someone who gives me a complete makeover. I hardly know myself. The surprising  thing is that I’m finding my way into more hearths than ever.  And I’m more rich and famous than I’ve ever been.

(Very loosely based on Zipes, J. (2006) ‘Origins: Fairy Tales and Folk Tales’  in Maybin, J., and Watson, N.J.,  (eds),2009, Children’s Literature: Approaches and Territories, Basingstoke, Palgrave Mamillan, pp26-38.

Twitter and chatter

A contemporary trend? Melvin Burgess is telling tales in twitter instalments.

Wish I could pick up a free copy of David Almond’s The Savage from Liverpool.

‘Red Riding Hood’s not out of the woods yet’ :  academic debate reported in a Toronto Star newspaper article,  with comment by Zipes.

On reading Hunt’s ‘Instruction and Delight’

Peter Hunt is great at challenging any assumptions we might have about children’s literature, isn’t he? I got a bit lost in the richness of this essay. Then I tried substituting the notion of  toys for that of children’s literature. How far does the analogy work?

The range of toys is huge. Toys have been marketed for children for ?  250 years. They can be looked at from the point of view of their creators’ purposes (to instruct or delight). They could be studied as an escape to more innocent times, but their representations of childhood should be viewed unsentimentally and critically.

Toys are important. They reflect cultural, educational and social thinking. They are manufactured and marketed. They relate to children’s play and to their personal development. But we cannot assume, as adults, that we know what is happening when children play.

There are basic concepts to clarify. What do we mean by the ideas of quality, value or toys? Even a cardboard box can be a toy, in the eyes of a child. Essentially, the definition must relate to an idea of the child or of childhood. Is it perfectly obvious when something is a toy? Or is it more subtle than that? The simplest toy (say, a peg doll) relies on symbols that the child must interpret (painted features represent the human face). Is a toy created to amuse a child, or sometimes to amuse the adult and engage them in playing with the child? Who judges which are the ‘best’ toys – are these the ‘classics’ such as the beautifully crafted doll’s house or  train set; or is that the thinking of a self-declared elite, and in fact even an everyday toy (a ball, for instance) is precious in its way?

We can consider how children actually use toys and games, and compare how adults expect them to be used. The role of adults in producing toys is complex: what is their motivation; their ideology? The could be manipulating children; or idealising them. They are certainly producing toys and games as a commodification of childhood activity.  Adults are also involved in questions of the suitability of particular toys for children, and this can involve a complex of social values.

…

I admit that the analogy is a bit thin. In particular, there’s not the same complexity (where’s the crossover for adults?) Perhaps if I included games. It seems to me that games are a bit like fairy tales: origins lost in the mists of time, for adults and children, now (computer games) massively commodified…