Meta Review Wild Things:The Joy of Reading Children's Literature as an Adult

 

Title: Wild Things: The Joy of Reading Children's Literature as an Adult
Author: Bruce Handy
Publisher: Simon and Schuster, 2017. 307 pages.
Source: Library

Publisher's Summary:
An irresistible, nostalgic, and insightful -- and totally original -- ramble through classic children's literature from Vanity Fair contributing editor (and father) Bruce Handy.

In 1690, the dour New England Primer, thought to be the first American children's book, was published in Boston. Offering children gems of advice such as "Strive to learn" and "Be not a dunce," it was no fun at all. So how did we get from there to "Let the wild rumpus start"? And now that we're living in a golden age of children's literature, what can adults get out of reading Where the Wild Things Are and Goodnight Moon, or Charlotte's Web and Little House on the Prairie?

In Wild Things, Bruce Handy revisits the classics of every American childhood, from fairy tales to The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and explores the back stories of their creators, using context and biography to understand how some of the most insightful, creative, and witty authors and illustrators of their times created their often deeply personal masterpieces. Along the way, Handy learns what The Cat in the Hat says about anarchy and absentee parenting, which themes link The Runaway Bunny and Portnoy's Complaint, and why Ramona Quimby is as true an American icon as Tom Sawyer or Jay Gatsby.

It's a profound, eye-opening experience to reencounter books that you once treasured after decades apart. A clear-eyed love letter to the greatest children's books and authors, from Louisa May Alcott and L. Frank Baum to Eric Carle, Dr. Seuss, Mildred D. Taylor, and E.B. White, Wild Things will bring back fond memories for readers of all ages, along with a few surprises. 


My Review:  
I was excited to stumble on this book at the library (while sorting books, as usual). Someone who wrote about the joy of doing something I do quite a lot? I had to read it.

What I got, I think tilted a bit more to the "adult" than the "joy" part of the premise. The blurb is pretty honest; the book is using a fairly scholarly approach to understand children's books and their appeal as well as their underlying meaning and significance. And don't get me wrong: that was interesting. But I often felt that the joy of reading those stories got lost in the lit crit.

I may also have been a little put out that Handy spent most of his time on books I've not read, and which aren't part of my psyche. That's right: for whatever reason, I never read Beezus and Ramona or the Wizard of Oz books (the former I might remedy; Handy convinced me I had some inner wisdom in not reading the latter). He did a good job of rehabilitating C.S. Lewis for those of us who aren't religious (and of explaining why I never liked either The Magician's Nephew or The Last Battle all that much), but turned around and annoyed me not so much by his accurate assessment of Little Women (caught between Alcott's feminism and a need to conform to societal standards) as by his out-of-hand dismissal of Anne of Green Gables.

Honestly, that inability on Handy's part to see that the somewhat irritating young Anne (who talks too much and often nonsense) is herself a character struggling against the stifling norms of her society really bothered me. Maybe his disgust with Anne for naming the geranium and giving it anthropomorphic feelings springs from a gender difference, but to me Anne's actions seem completely reasonable. As children, don't most of us imagine and half-believe that certain toys or other things are actually alive? Since Handy didn't finish the book, he doesn't get to see how Montgomery developed that uncontrolled imagination into something that could carry Anne out of the normal realms of Avonlea little girls. (That Montgomery later felt it necessary to push Anne into adulthood and back into what amounts to a very traditional female role is another issue, and one that could lead me down side-trails for pages.)

In the end, however much I did or didn't agree with everything Bruce Handy wrote, his book is an interesting look at the context, history, and significance of a number of childhood classics, and it is worth a look. It may just be, though, that analyzing joy is like analyzing humor: it has a rather crushing effect on it.

My Recommendation:
Read this for the backstories of the books, and the better understanding of the evolution of children's literature.


FTC Disclosure: I checked Wild Things out of my library, and received nothing from the writer or publisher for my honest review.  The opinions expressed are my own and those of no one else.  I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."  

Classic Kids review: Kitty's Class Day by Louisa May Alcott

Title: Kitty's Class Day and Other Proverb Stories, by Louisa May Alcott, 189 pages
Publisher: Duke Classics, Open Library edition.  Orig. publication 1882.
Source: Library, on-line ebook collection

Note: The edition I read retained the original title, unlike the cover I'm showing here (i.e., included the "proverb stories" part).

Summary: Contains eight stories of various lengths, but most if not all with pretty transparent "lessons" for the young reader.  Stories are:
Kitty's Class Day
Aunt Kipp
Psyche's Art
A Country Christmas
On Picket Duty
The Baron's Gloves; or, Amy's Romance
My Red Cap
What the Bells Saw and Said

Review:
It is always challenging to review books from another age.  My reaction to the moralizing tone of these stories is not the same, I'm sure, as the reaction of the young reading of 1882.  But for my readers, who are more modern, be warned: these are, indeed, "proverb" stories, and the lessons range from well-mixed in the story to hit-you-over-the-head (see final story, "What the Bells Saw and Said," which is pretty much a critique of a self-centered and materialistic society.  If it hadn't been interesting from a "plus ca change" perspective, it would have been unreadable).

My favorite story was probably "Psyche's Art," wherein the girl learns that she is only able to be the artist she feels herself to be after taking care of home responsibilities (not a lesson I'm completely comfortable with as she set it, but the point is largely valid, I think).  Best, at the end, Alcott's own carefully hidden feminism comes to the fore, and she ends by leaving it to the reader to choose if she and the hero fell in love, married, and lived happily ever after or, if "those who can conceive of a world outside of a wedding-ring may believe that the friends remained faithful friends all their lives" and Psyche was quite happy with her art and her home, no man apparently necessary.

I don't think I would particularly recommend this book for children (I am frankly unsure if I recommend any of Alcott for young girls; there is an awfully strong sense that marriage and family are the highest goal for the female of the species, only occasionally challenged by a character who proves otherwise.  I think from Alcott's biography that she was a little afraid to be as feminist as she felt).  But like many books from the period, which was near the beginning of the creation of books purely for children, it is interesting and educational for the student of history and culture.

Disclaimer: I checked Kitty's Class Day out from my public (digital) library, and received nothing from the publisher or author in exchange for my honest review.  The opinions expressed herein are my own and those of no one else. 

Book Review: Three Times Lucky

by Sheila Turnage.  Middle grade fiction, 312 pages.

Tupelo Landing, North Carolina, population about what you can fit in a dinky cafe, including one Mo LoBeau, age 11.  Mo washed into town as a newborn, carried on flood debris from a hurricane.  Now she lives with Miss Lana and the Colonel (he washed up in that same storm, and has no memory of what went before) in what by any standards would be a non-traditional family.  But even though Mo is pretty happy with the way her summer-before-sixth-grade is shaping up, she has never stopped looking for her "Upstream Mother," the one who lost her in that flood.  Then things get difficult.

Though the story is, as near as I can tell, in a contemporary setting, Tupelo Landing has the feel of a town from about 1950, possibly because it pretty much stopped changing 60 years ago.  Turnage captures the slow, dusty summer feel, not to mention the feeling of everyone knowing everyone's business, beautifully.  That the story ends up showing that they may not know each other as well as they thought is no coincidence, I'm sure.

A murder, an old crime, and a kidnapping, and Mo's summer isn't turning out quite the way she expected.  She and her best friend Dale set out to solve it all, with maybe just a little help from Joe Starr, a detective from the big city.  They need to take time, too, to help his big brother with a little financial setback.  The story moves fast, in its leisurely summer way, and captures beautifully the equally pressing importance (to Mo) of things that an adult might consider to be at very different levels of significance.  It all matters to eleven.

In the end, with the help of another  hurricane, all the loose ends are tied up, and Mo makes some surprising discoveries about the meaning of family.

Overall, I found it a good read, fast-moving and with enough suspense to make me stay up too late finishing it.  I did get a little confused at the end about how certain issues untangled themselves, but otherwise have no complaints.  4.5 stars.

 

I somehow got myself committed to two 3rd-Wednesday posts, and this is the first.  Later today (seconds before midnight?) (okay, or maybe tomorrow.  Sheesh.) I'll post the other, my contribution to the Progressive Book Club's discussion of Save the Cat, a how-to book on screenwriting, which I am reading and discussing as a writer of novels, not movies.

Review: The Weirdstone of Brisingamen

by Alan Garner, published 1960.  268 pages.


Alan Garner's exciting--and somewhat dark--tale of a magical threat to the world blends magical and real worlds in a manner reminiscent of Narnia.  However, unlike Lewis's books, where the characters travel distinctly between the worlds, in Garner's novel the worlds interact continually and the boundaries are indistinct. 

Set in Cheshire (England), The Weirdstone of Brisingamen tells of Colin and Susan, brother and sister, who stumble into the magical world that exists under and around the everyday world they know.  Susan wears a curious stone on a bracelet inherited from her mother, and the local corps of witches, wizards and evil beings recognize it as a magical artifact essential to a plan to protect the world from the forces evil (them).  They are as determined to get it as the far weaker forces of good are to protect it, and the children, and their powers are twisted and terrifying.  Garner paints them vividly enough to frighten those prone to nightmares.

Through the early chapters, the children stumble in and out of mysteries and dangers with no understanding of what they have (the stone) or what is at stake.  Gradually, they learn the truth, and the action shifts more and more to the magical world, where they are repeatedly attacked and pursued by the evil beings.  Or rather, the magical beings more and more take over what we thought was the everyday, magicless world.  By the second section of the book, the children have gained a pretty good idea what is at stake, and set out to put things right.  They have courage enough, but still lack understanding and the skills they need to survive the adventure.  At the point when all seems lost, they pick up a couple of dwarfish protectors and magic has firmly taken over Cheshire.

In an  unusual move for juvenile fiction of this nature, Gowther, the older farmer who is the children's guardian, not only comes to a quick understanding of the issues and acceptance of the magic world, but accompanies the children and the dwarves on their wildly exciting escape.  Gowther proves invaluable to the escape and a stalwart fighter in the battles they have along the way.  Garner manages to do something I think is very difficult in this kind of story, which is to allow children to be autonomous agents who face situations with courage, and also to allow them to interact somewhat realistically with adults.  It seems like in most such stories, the adults in the lives of the child heroes are an obstruction at best.  Here, while the adults wish to protect Colin and Susan, they also recognize that they have an important role to play, and allow them to take the necessary risks to play it (I only regret that Bess, the mother-figure, is packed off and not part of the party).  You might say that is the lesson of the book for all us parents who read it: trust the kids but be prepared to fight alongside them when necessary.

Garner does not do anywhere near the world-building that, for example, Tolkien does.  He doesn't need to.  His story takes place in our world--and yet not.  As a result we feel very much as Colin and Susan must--disturbed by a growing sense of danger, and frightened by vague or unimaginable threats and a growing sense that things are not what we have always assumed them to be.  We also learn as they do, in bits and pieces, of the world that exists in and around them, and which they might have gone through their lives never knowing existed (as most of their neighbors do, apart from the ones who are in fact evil witches and warlocks).  I kept expecting them to make that one, definitive "through the wardrobe" move that would take them out of our world until the adventure ended.  The fact that, instead, the other world invades ours, is part of what makes the stakes so high and kept me from putting the book down.

Now, I have to admit that despite leaping fairly quickly into adventures and great dangers, the story did not initially grab me.  Looking back at the opening chapters, I frankly can't see what my problem was (perhaps that it faced too much competition from the half dozen other books I was reading?).  Certainly by the time I reached the midpoint, the book had acquired "don't put me down" status, and I read the last hundred and a quarter pages more or less in one sitting (leaving all the other books to sit around whining that it was their turn).

The writing is smooth, editing is professional (as one would expect), and the book does not read particularly as a "children's book," even while it is clearly accessible to at least the more advanced middle grade readers.  A pair of maps at the beginning help set the scene and make a good reference as our heroes were being chased about the countryside.  Looked at in one way, it could be said that Brisingamen is stereotypical (though I would argue that there are elements that I have seldom seen elsewhere), but it is well to remember that in 1960 there was very little yet written in the fantasy genre, and Alan Garner was one of the writers who developed the genre.  More than 50 years and thousands of fantasies later, the story continues to pull us in and carry us ever-faster to the all-too-sudden ending.  That seems worth 5 stars.



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