Choose your family

Here’s a thought-experiment about ideas of childhood and growing up. If you found yourself wandering lost among children’s literature, orphaned and alone, which literary family would you choose?

Do we all want to be Weasleys? Freedom to be yourself, unconditional love, excitement and fun, with the prospect of growing up into a responsible adult with decent values.

I don’t want to stay with Peter Pan – there’s no growth (though I kind of like the idea of no weight…)  Wendy’s childhood is playful but she has to cope with a lot of nonsense from John about boys being better. I really don’t want to camp out with the Swallows or the Amazons – my imagination wouldn’t take me past the discomforts (yes, I’m a duffer); couldn’t abide Tom and his brother Peter as siblings or their stifling ordinariness (too much like my own); Cassie’s family have it tough and  Mama and Papa dole out punishment too.  Lyra’s guardians allow her an enchanting freedom but she doesn’t seem to be much cared for…

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!

Death, jollity, and offal

I’ve been enjoying (re)discovering some little aspects of our set books.  Like Katherine, who commented on my last posting, I wonder how I’ll feel about some of these  ‘old friends’  by the end of this course.

But I would admit that for my part I’m not always the most mindful friend – as an avid but sometimes over-speedy reader I can miss, and certainly forget, a lot. It’s been a delight to notice more details on a re-reading.

It was a comment by Peter Hunt ( “there is even a death joke on the second page” , in our course reader) that sent me back to The Tale of Peter Rabbit. Then I noticed that we have an edition which highlights this ‘joke’ because it gives it an extra page all of its own, with a picture I’d never seen before. (A slightly disappointing one, I think – Potter’s people often aren’t as entrancing, to my eyes, as her other drawings.)

Surely I’d noticed before that Peter has a blue coat, while his more compliant siblings have the red ones of  ‘good little bunnies’? But I’ve only just noticed that the red coats are sensibly taken off  (p17)  for blackberrying.

I’d forgotten the obvious (child-focused?) humour of Harry Potter.  Dumbledore says “a few words” at the start of the new school year, and they are literally a few words: “Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!” (p92).

And in comparison with the magical feasts at Hogwarts, Lyra (the accomplished Liar) in Northern Lights relishes calves’ liver, sweetbreads,  rank dried reindeer meat and steaming raw kidney.

Are there any little details that strike you afresh?