Review of Magic for Marigold, by L. M. Montgomery

Children's Fiction Review, Classics 0

Magic for Marigold

by L. M. Montgomery

McClelland-Bantam, Toronto, 1988. Originally published in 1929. 274 pages.
Review written August 3, 2020, from my own copy, purchased for me by a friend at Green Gables in Cavendish, Prince Edward Island.

I’m still rereading all my L. M. Montgomery books, in honor of the trip I got to take to Prince Edward Island last Fall. I’ve slowed down my reading since the trip, but am still plugging away. After this one, I only have six of her novels left, and then the posthumous short story collections.

This particular copy of Magic for Marigold was brought to me from Prince Edward Island by a friend who had visited in 1988 – when the book had gone out of print in the United States but was coming out in paperback in Canada. The funny thing is that she brought me back two books – this one and also The Blue Castle — and they turned out to be my favorite (The Blue Castle) and least favorite (Magic for Marigold). Also interesting is that these two books were written the same year of L. M. Montgomery’s life.

Rereading Magic for Marigold many years later, I enjoyed it a lot more than I did the first time, because I knew what to expect. There’s no romance, and it amounts to essentially a series of short stories about a little girl as she grows from birth to age 12. L. M. Montgomery is a brilliant writer of short stories, and taken that way, this book is as delightful as her others.

Many themes that show up in the author’s other books are present here. Marigold’s father died before she was born, and she lives with her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother in the ancestral home, part of an enormous family of relations. The foibles of family are at the heart of many of the situations Marigold faces.

They live in a small farming community on Prince Edward Island. I always love the names L. M. Montgomery invents for farming communities on Prince Edward Island. This one is Harmony.

Marigold is an imaginative child with an imaginary friend she can meet with if she follows a certain ritual. Her trouble making flesh-and-blood friends is one of the ongoing themes of the book, though her imagination is seen as a strength, not a weakness.

One thing, though, I’m afraid I hate this time through – the ending. Marigold has finally made a good local friend, a boy. But then another new boy comes into town and the first boy stops playing with Marigold or doing things with her. Well, after a tiff between them, he comes back to Marigold – but then makes up with the other friend. Marigold learns that sometimes you need to share your friends, and that’s fine. She figures out she shouldn’t pretend to like things she doesn’t like – such as hunting snakes and digging for worms. That’s fine, too.

What I don’t like is what her aunt tells her. There’s some good stuff about how we have to share our friends with others. But I didn’t like when she inserted gender into it with these words: “We – women – must always share.” And with that background, Marigold’s last line bothered me: “’And I’ll always be here for him to come back to,’ she thought.”

As a friend, okay. I’m still a friend to my friends who go through a spell of not having time for me. I do like the principle that you can have more than one friend at a time. That even best friends can have more than one friend at a time. But that feeling of waiting in one place? No, Marigold, go off and have adventures, too! When that boy comes back, it’s okay if you’re busy having fun with other friends yourself.

But that’s a small thing. As with every single L. M. Montgomery book, reading this gave me a feeling of joy and a reminder to notice the beauty around me. And now I can think back to my time on Prince Edward Island and imagine the characters in that stunning setting.

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Review of Further Chronicles of Avonlea, by L. M. Montgomery

Classics, Historical, L. M. Montgomery, Short Stories, Teen Fiction Review 0

Further Chronicles of Avonlea

by L. M. Montgomery

Seal Books, 1987. First published in 1920. 199 pages.
Review written September 17, 2019, from my own copy.

I feel guilty reading this book, because I know full well that it was published against the author’s wishes and without her getting any of the profits. She, in fact, sued her publisher to desist publication, and won that case. It’s kind of too bad to go against her wishes after her death.

And yet… stories by L. M. Montgomery!

Now, I was enjoying them thoroughly, marveling in her quirky, humorous characters and the wide variety of situations – until I got to the last two.

What happened when this book was published was that L. M. Montgomery had already split with the publisher of Anne of Green Gables, L. C. Page. So that publisher pulled out stories she had submitted for possible publication in the first volume — Chronicles of Avonlea — but that they had decided not to use.

In her lawsuit, Maud Montgomery claimed that the book damaged her reputation, because she had used some of the plots here in other places.

Well, I disagreed about it damaging her reputation – until I got to the last two stories. The next-to-the-last story uses the same plot as one of the subplots used in Anne’s House of Dreams. There may be other stories repeated, but I couldn’t pinpoint where. I was enjoying them greatly.

But the last story – the last story is completely, horribly, blatantly racist toward Indians and “half-breeds.” Just horribly so. It’s assumed that they are inferior and shouldn’t dare to aspire to fall in love with someone with a “good pedigree.” And things are said about their “natures” – which are simply despicable. It’s even worse than the racism in Kilmeny of the Orchard.

Now, she was a product of her time, and everyone around her thought that way – but that story, “Tannis of the Flats” – is still horrible. And yes, reading it damages her reputation for me – though I doubt that’s the story she was thinking of.

I would have been better off if I’d bowed to the author’s wishes and refused to read this book.

But I was enjoying some gems before I got to that point! L. M. Montgomery got her start writing stories, and she mastered the form. So let me just give my readers fair warning – you might want to stop before you get to the end.

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Source: This review is based on my own copy.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of The Golden Road, by L. M. Montgomery

Children's Fiction Review, Classics, Old Favorites, Starred Review 0

The Golden Road

by L. M. Montgomery

Bantam Books, 1989. First published in 1913. 213 pages.
Starred Review
Review written July 17, 2019, from my own copy

The Golden Road is a continuation of The Story Girl, so they should be read in order. It’s more antics and adventures of several children living in a village on Prince Edward Island more than one hundred years ago. Put that way, it’s maybe surprising how enjoyable the stories still are today.

The tone is nostalgic. Beverley King is an old man telling about a beautiful season of his childhood, when they were on “the Golden Road.” Like the first book, it’s an episodic tale, though this one doesn’t have quite as many stories told by the Story Girl. But we get more encounters with the local “witch,” Peg Bowen, and Felicity finally makes a mistake in cooking, and we find out about the mystery of the Awkward Man.

Summarized, there’s not a lot that stands out, but this is one of those books with characters who are delightful to spend time with. And the setting of Prince Edward Island pervades the book, making me all the more eager to see it for myself later this year.

This is a book that had me reading with a smile on my face.

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Review of Chronicles of Avonlea, by L. M. Montgomery

Classics, Historical, Old Favorites, Short Stories, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Chronicles of Avonlea

by L. M. Montgomery

Grosset & Dunlap, 1970. Originally published in 1912. 306 pages.
Starred Review
Review written July 6, 2019, from my own copy

In preparation for a trip to Prince Edward Island in September, I’m rereading all my L. M. Montgomery books in the order they were published. Chronicles of Avonlea is number five in this endeavor.

Maud Montgomery honed her craft by writing stories and getting them published in magazines. She did this for years before her first novel was published. This collection of stories gives wonderful examples of her brilliance. The only I quibble I have with them is that she was being pressured to write more about Anne of Green Gables – and mention of Anne Shirley is shoehorned into almost every single one of these stories. The only one where it’s organic and Anne is an important part of the plot is the first one, “The Hurrying of Ludovic.”

The most brilliant story of all in this collection is probably my favorite short story ever. I’ve done readings of this story when I was in college to entertain my friends and, yes, when I came to this story this time through, I was compelled to read the whole thing out loud.

That Most Delightful Story Ever is “The Quarantine at Alexander Abraham’s,” the story of a woman who hates men and her cat trapped in the home of a man who hates women and his dog. The woman, who is the narrator, does come off best – and both change their attitudes by the end. The process is all the fun and reading it in the narrator’s voice saying, “I am noted for that” makes it utterly delightful.

Honestly, in this read-through, I’m constantly being shocked when I realize these older characters are now younger than me! Angelina Peter MacPherson is forty-eight years old in this story. In fact, many of the main characters in these stories are deep into adulthood. I’m going to file this book in with Teen Fiction, but really these are family stories. It’s all innocent and G-rated, about life and love, but there’s a lot of focus on older folks coming to understand whom they truly love, whether in romance or the love of a child.

This is a delightful collection, written by a master storyteller at the height of her powers.

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of The Story Girl, by L. M. Montgomery

Children's Fiction Review, Classics, Historical, Old Favorites, Starred Review 0

The Story Girl

by L. M. Montgomery

Bantam Books, 1987. First published in 1910. 258 pages.
Starred Review
Review written July 5, 2019, from my own copy

It’s really happening! My two childhood friends and I are going to Prince Edward Island this coming September, during the week when all three of us are 55 years old. We first conceived this trip when we were 50, but decided to put it off – and now our rooms are booked!

And this time I’m getting serious about rereading my L. M. Montgomery books. This time, I decided to reread them in the order they were published. I have already reread Anne of Green Gables, Anne of Avonlea, and Kilmeny of the Orchard. Now it was time for The Story Girl.

The Story Girl is about the children of the village of Carlisle on Prince Edward Island. It’s told from the perspective of Beverley King, looking back as an old man on the joys they had as children.

[Incidentally, I have learned from L. M. Montgomery’s books that if a man’s name ends in Y, women will eventually steal it. All of these names appear in her books as names for boys: Beverley, Shirley, Lindsay, and Hillary.]

When I was a young adult reading L. M. Montgomery’s books, I preferred the ones that had romance. But now as I myself am “old” (by her standards – I’ve been shocked that “old” characters in her books are only in their forties!) – I’m reading these books with my own nostalgia.

The Story Girl was one of L. M. Montgomery’s own favorites. I think she liked to think of herself as a sort of Sara Stanley, who was called by everyone “the Story Girl.”

Maud Montgomery did her apprenticeship writing short stories and selling them to magazines. I think as a consequence, short stories are her natural form. And she does a nice job of weaving them through this book, with the Story Girl telling them family stories about objects in their home or stories about people from their village or fairy tales about something that happened.

There’s a lot that’s old-fashioned in this book. Sara and her cousin Felicity are fourteen and twelve years old, but they seem younger by today’s standards. And they have different abilities from children today, with Felicity completely able to run the house while the grown-ups are away for a week, including having baked all afternoon so their pantry is “well stocked with biscuits, cookies, cakes, and pies,” so that she is able to entertain an influx of visitors, as is proper.

Cecily set the table, and the Story Girl waited on it and washed all the dishes afterwards. But all the blushing honours fell to Felicity, who received so many compliments that her airs were quite unbearable for the rest of the week. She presided at the head of the table with as much grace and dignity as if she had been five times twelve years old and seemed to know by instinct just who took sugar and who did not. She was flushed with excitement and pleasure, and was so pretty that I could hardly eat for looking at her – which is the highest compliment in a boy’s power to pay.

I was amused how often the episodes between the children had to do with church and the Bible. When the paper reports that someone in the States has said the day and time for Judgment Day, they all get into a tizzy. Another time, they have a preaching contest (boys only, of course) with very amusing results. And there’s an incident with a picture of God and the question of praying for their cat to get well. Did prayer end up healing him – or was it their request to the local woman they all think is a witch?

All in all, it was delightful to be transported back into L. M. Montgomery’s world. This one doesn’t have romance, but it does have two other things L. M. Montgomery did exceptionally well: short stories plus the escapades of children.

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Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of Kilmeny of the Orchard, by L. M. Montgomery

Classics, Historical, Old Favorites, Romance, Teen Fiction Review 0

kilmeny_of_the_orchard_largeKilmeny of the Orchard

by L. M. Montgomery

Bantam Books, New York, 1989. First published in 1910. 134 pages.

I turned 50 last month. As a way of celebrating, later in the year during the few weeks when all three of us are 50 years old, two childhood friends and I are hoping to visit Prince Edward Island. In preparation for that trip, and as part of my celebration, I thought I’d reread L. M. Montgomery’s books. Update: The trip’s not going to work out after all this year, but we’re going to try to go before we turn 55. And it’s still a good excuse to reread the books!

Kilmeny of the Orchard is actually the first novel Lucy Maud Montgomery wrote, though she didn’t get it published until after her classic Anne of Green Gables was published and was immediately wildly popular. To be honest, as a writer it encouraged me greatly to learn this. If L. M. Montgomery’s first effort was a masterpiece, well, then, who was I to think I could ever write anything?

Let’s just say that after reading Kilmeny of the Orchard, I was not surprised to learn it was the author’s first effort. A lovely first effort, yes, but not a masterpiece like her first published novel.

Kilmeny of the Orchard, like all but one of L. M. Montgomery’s books, takes place on beautiful Prince Edward Island. It’s a romance, simple and sweet. There is lots of flowery description and the young lovers are good and true and the story will make you happy.

Yes, the plot is highly unlikely. L. M. Montgomery used to find surprising stories in the news and then put them in your fiction — not realizing that fiction needs to be less surprising than truth in order to be believed. Worse, there’s a villainous character who is clearly villainous because he’s from “Italian peasant stock.” And our heroine is essentially the most beautiful woman in the world, and innocent and sweet (even though she’s lived away from people except her aunt and uncle and the villain all her life). The hero is handsome and smart and rich, but working as a schoolteacher to help a friend.

However, you still can see the seeds of L. M. Montgomery’s greatness. She may overdo the description in this book, but she has a gift for it. And you can already see the quirky characters appearing whom she is so good at bringing to life.

All the same, this is the book that reassures me that L. M. Montgomery was human, too. She, too, had to work at her craft.

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on my own copy, purchased years ago.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of Charlotte’s Web, by E. B. White

Animal Characters, Audiobooks, Award Winners, Children's Fiction Review, Classics, Contemporary, Fantasy, Starred Review, Top 100 Writers and Illustrators 0

Charlotte’s Web

by E. B. White
read by the Author

Listening Library, 2002. Written in 1952. Recorded in 1970. 3 compact discs.
Starred Review
1953 Newbery Honor Book
1970 Laura Ingalls Wilder Award

Charlotte’s Web has twice been voted the #1 Children’s Chapter Book of all time by librarians and parents voting in Betsy Bird‘s School Library Journal Top 100 Chapter Books Poll. In fact, it was reading Betsy’s post that I learned that there is an audio with E. B. White reading the book. I immediately checked if our library had that version and happily took it home.

It’s been many years since I’ve read this practically perfect book. My third grade teacher read it to me the first time. Later, I read it to my sons. And my older son watched the Hanna-Barbara animated version over and over again. As I listened to the audiobook, I realized that the many lines I had memorized were the ones that were used in the film. And they did keep many, many of the great lines. (Like the starting and ending lines. Like Charlotte’s salutation.) But I’d forgotten a lot of the side scenes that didn’t make it to the film.

There are so many scenes simply of life in the barn. Swinging on the rope swing. Wilbur escaping his pen right at the beginning. How it felt to have slops poured on top of Wilbur or to roll in the warm manure. The book is truly a paean to life in the barn.

Now at the beginning, I didn’t feel E. B. White measured up to the actors and especially actresses I remembered reciting the lines in my head. But his voice grew on me, and it’s a good, down-to-earth voice for this story. You can hear in his voice his love for the quiet life of the barn. It’s truly a treasure to still be able to listen to him telling his masterpiece of a story.

Now, there’s no need to critique this classic. I was surprised to find little quibbles. What happens to Fern when the whole spider plot happens. Isn’t she in on it? But it’s Charlotte’s Web! The book is genius, and it works. And you can listen to it read by E. B. White himself.

listeninglibrary.com

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library audiobook from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of Over Sea, Under Stone, by Susan Cooper

Children's Fiction Review, Classics, Fantasy, Old Favorites, Starred Review 0

Over Sea, Under Stone

by Susan Cooper

Scholastic, New York. First published in 1965. 243 pages.
Starred Review

I decided to reread Susan Cooper’s The Dark Is Rising cycle after I heard she won the Margaret A. Edwards Award for these books. I almost got this first one read before I went to the Margaret Edwards Luncheon and got to hear her speak. But I still intend to carry out my plan!

I missed these books as a kid, which is a real shame. I’d only read them once before. The first one hasn’t gotten as many awards and recognition as the others, but it has a special place in my heart. Over Sea, Under Stone is more like fantasy novels that have gone before, like the works of E. Nesbit and Edward Eager and C. S. Lewis. You’ve got a group of siblings stumbling into magic on their summer vacation. I think that’s what I like about the book, why it has a special warm fond place in my heart.

Barney and Jane and Simon are spending the summer in their Great-Uncle Merry’s house in the village of Tressiwick, on the coast.

Great-Uncle Merry is the character who ended up inspiring the rest of the series. Here’s how the children think of him, right at the start of the book:

How old he was, nobody knew. “Old as the hills,” Father said, and they felt, deep down, that this was probably right. There was something about Great-Uncle Merry that was like the hills, or the sea, or the sky; something ancient, but without age or end.

Always, wherever he was, unusual things seemed to happen. He would often disappear for a long time, and then suddenly come through the Drews’ front door as if he had never been away, announcing that he had found a lost valley in South America, a Roman fortress in France, or a burned Viking ship buried on the English coast. The newspapers would publish enthusiastic stories of what he had done. But by the time the reporters came knocking at the door, Great-Uncle Merry would be gone, back to the dusty peace of the university where he taught. They would wake up one morning, go to call him for breakfast, and find that he was not there. And then they would hear no more of him until the next time, perhaps months later, that he appeared at the door. It hardly seemed possible that this summer, in the house he had rented for them in Trewissick, they would be with him in one place for four whole weeks.

In that house, the children find a secret room and a treasure map. The treasure map leads to ingenious clues to find the Grail. But the children and Uncle Merry aren’t the only ones hot on the trail.

This book encapsulates my idea of a good, solid fantasy tale for kids. The rest of the books are more creative and more innovative and, yes, scarier. But this one has a soft spot in my heart for being a traditionally good story of ordinary children working together and finding magic.

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on my own personal copy.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Top 100 Chapter Books Poll – Again!

Children's Fiction Review, Classics, General, Sondy's Selections, Top Ten Tuesday 0

As I said last night, Betsy Bird, who writes School Library Journal’s Fuse #8 blog, is doing another Top 100 Chapter Books Poll. You have two more days to get in your votes! Anyone who loves books, do this soon! You’ll be so glad you did!

I had a terrible time limiting my list of Chapter Books to only ten. In fact, the only way I could do it at all was to take out some of my absolute favorites because part of what I love about them is the romance. Come to think of it, ALL of these choices, I read at one time or another to one or both of my boys (or my husband did). So I can safely say that all of these books are definitely children’s books. Though I can also firmly say that there are adults who will love them, too. And I’m afraid I only read half of them as a child myself.

I definitely still keep wavering with the final choices. In fact, let’s see if I make any last-minute changes as I post this list!

The Books I Believe are the Top Ten Chapter Books of All Time:

1. Anne of Green Gables, by L. M. Montgomery

I mentioned last night that I would have loved to include Emily of New Moon. But this is right. Anne is classic. Anne is the heroine who started it all. I first read this book in 10th grade, and I found it a breath of fresh air after all the adult books I’d been reading. Then, as I was in high school and college, they slowly came out with more and more of L. M. Montgomery’s books. I also own all the volumes of her journals and everything I could get my hands on of hers. My absolute favorite is The Blue Castle, but it’s actually a book for adults. Anyway, Anne Shirley is a character who comes alive.

2. Momo, by Michael Ende

I know this one won’t make the list, but I can’t let it go unrecognized. This was the first book I ordered from Book-of-the-Month Club, and it was so good, I blame it for all the other books I ended up ordering. When I moved to Germany, my first purchase was a copy of this book in the original language (German). Momo is a little girl with a gift for listening. So when gray men come and steal people’s time by convincing them to save it, Momo is the only one who can see them, because she really listens to them. This book is mythic in scope.

3. Winnie-the-Pooh, by A. A. Milne

I tell the whole story of how much I love this book in my review. Let’s just say that I remember my mother reading it to me. Then I remember reading it to my little brothers and sisters. Then, in college, I learned that one of the most fun things to do was read with a group of friends, where different people read the different voices. And finally, I got to read it to my sons, or together with my sons. Oh, and I’ve read it in German!

One of the funny things is that it reads on different levels. I remember as a child just taking the things said as perfectly reasonable and matter-of-fact that now I think are hilarious. This book is a work of genius.

I also have to mention that I brainwashed both my sons into loving these characters so that the very first characters they pretended to be were ones from Winnie-the-Pooh. In fact, my son learned early to write his own name — “P-O-O-H.” (When he called me in the night with the call, “Pi–iglet!”, I thought he’d gone too far.)

Now, to be honest, The House at Pooh Corner is a little better, since it includes Tigger. However, last time I voted for The World of Pooh in order to include both and my vote was totally wasted. I’m sure everyone who reads the list will be thinking of ALL the Pooh stories.

4. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, by C. S. Lewis

I remember at my vast old age in 7th grade sadly concluding that I was too old for the Narnia books now. (I had already read them many times.) Then I took them up again in college and found new riches. I know I will never “outgrow” them again. Of course, it does help that I’m a Christian, and love the insights about God found in Lewis’s writings. But the magic of the stories works fully, even without that. (And I appreciate that part much more as an adult than I did as a kid.)

As I said in my review, no kid who reads this book will ever look at a closet door the same way again.

5. The Hobbit, by J. R. R. Tolkien

I remember reading this book on the way to school and having to stop right when Bilbo was in the tunnel leading to the dragon’s lair. That was excruciating!

6. The Thief, by Megan Whalen Turner

When we were reading to both our kids together, my older son said we had to read this book next. I was skeptical, but by the time I finished, I was a complete fan. And it grows on me with each rereading — because I notice more clever things each time. The second book, The Queen of Attolia would be near the top of my YA list.

7. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, by J. K. Rowling

Oh, our family got hours and hours and hours of enjoyment out of these books. We read all of the first five out loud as a family, with no reading ahead. (Or as little reading ahead as we could stand.) We read books #3 and #4 on family vacations, and ended up putting off a visit to Neuschwanstein Castle because we just had to finish Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

8. A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L’Engle

This book isn’t perfect, but how it endures. I didn’t read this until I was in college. When I did, I was so grateful to the person who told me about it.

9. Pippi Longstocking, by Astrid Lindgren

This book has such childlike exuberance. Pippi is someone we’d talk about as if we knew her. (“And she sleeps with her feet on the pillow!”) This is a child-sized tall tale.

10. Half Magic, by Edward Eager

My favorite of his is Seven Day Magic, but Half Magic is more well-known, the first one I read, and a classic concept.

Oh, so do I really have to leave out so many? I wanted to include Little Britches, by Ralph Moody, Dealing with Dragons, by Patricia C. Wrede, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum, and Black Beauty, by Anna Sewall. I hope other people include them! And the ones I decided were YA, but that I love, love, love are The Blue Sword, by Robin McKinley, The Goose Girl, by Shannon Hale, and The Witch of Blackbird Pond, by Elizabeth George Speare.

I am helping Betsy compile the results, but I am sure if I changed some answers, I’d get found out, and she would withdraw the privilege. So I will be good. Sigh.

The results will be better the more people send in their lists! So get moving on that! And I do really enjoy your comments. What would be on your list?

Darkness and Oz

Classics, Commentary, General 0

There’s been another recent kerfuffle, albeit a relatively minor one, about darkness in children’s books.

What set it off was Maria Tatar’s Opinion piece in the New York Times, “No More Adventures in Wonderland.” A notable paragraph includes: “But the savagery we offer children today is more unforgiving than it once was, and the shadows are rarely banished by comic relief. Instead of stories about children who will not grow up, we have stories about children who struggle to survive.” In another section, she says, “Children today get an unprecedented dose of adult reality in their books, sometimes without the redemptive beauty, cathartic humor and healing magic of an earlier time.” Mind you, then she brings up an example that was definitely written for young adults, not children.

Her final paragraph mourns what she calls a lost tradition: “Still, it is hard not to mourn the decline of the literary tradition invented by Carroll and Barrie, for they also bridged generational divides. No other writers more fully entered the imaginative worlds of children — where danger is balanced by enchantment — and reproduced their magic on the page. In today’s stories, those safety zones are rapidly vanishing as adult anxieties edge out childhood fantasy.”

I’ve read some thoughtful responses to that piece from Monica Edinger, Nina Lindsay, and Betsy Bird, along with some insightful comments from their readers. I don’t think I have a lot to add to the discussion.

But I did read something this week that made me laugh, when juxtaposed in my mind with Maria Tatar’s article. Believe it or not, it’s the Introduction to L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

I was rereading this fabulous book for a meeting of the DCKidLit Book Club.

Bearing in mind Ms. Tatar’s article and that L. Frank Baum wrote this in 1900, see if you can see why this Introduction made me laugh:

Folk lore, legends, myths and fairy tales have followed childhood through the ages, for every healthy youngster has a wholesome and instinctive love for stories fantastic, marvelous and manifestly unreal. The winged fairies of Grimm and Andersen have brought more happiness to childish hearts than all other human creations.

Yet the old-time fairy tale, having served for generations, may now be classed as “historical” in the children’s library; for the time has come for a series of newer “wonder tales” in which the stereotyped genie, dwarf and fairy are eliminated, together with all the horrible and blood-curdling incident devised by their authors to point a fearsome moral to each tale. Modern education includes morality; therefore the modern child seeks only entertainment in its wonder-tales and gladly dispenses with all disagreeable incident.

Having this thought in mind, the story of “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” was written solely to pleasure children of today. It aspires to being a modernized fairy tale, in which the wonderment and joy are retained and the heart-aches and nightmares are left out.

— L. Frank Baum
Chicago, April, 1900

It’s funny in several ways. First, he was complaining that existing children’s literature is too dark. But also, he was saying the opposite of what people say today: That it’s “modern” to have sweetness and light in children’s books.

So perhaps critics have a point. But I’m thinking there were two camps then and there are two camps now. One camp thinks that childhood should be G-rated, and you should try to keep unpleasant things from the little dears. (I guess you can already tell which camp I’m in.) The other camp thinks that kids can handle unpleasant things, in reasonable context and as they grow.

To be honest, I love the Oz books, but they do have a sentimental, grandfatherly tone. This makes their best audience tend to be younger children, who don’t mind being talked down to. Mind you, they’re wonderful adventures. But the reader must not mind that the heroine is called a “little girl,” as in this passage: “Dorothy was an innocent, harmless little girl, who had been carried by a cyclone many miles from home; and she had never killed anything in all her life.”

I’ve been thinking about it, and Oz is a perfect family read-aloud for young children, as well as an ideal choice for early readers. The reading level is a little higher than the interest level, because as kids get older they are less taken by the grandfatherly sentimental tone. (Though if you once hook kids on the Oz stories, I’m convinced they’ll continue to gobble them up, and will take longer to outgrow them.)

Like J. K. Rowling, L. Frank Baum had an incredible imagination, and threw all kinds of bizarre countries, characters, and adventures into his books. As far as creating new, American wonder-tales, he certainly succeeded.

But how funny that he was trying to save the world from dark children’s literature of “heart-aches and nightmares”!

Actually, if everyone who finds children’s literature too dark would take his approach, I would have no complaints at all: Go out there and write something wonderful without the darkness. L. Frank Baum decided to write light-hearted wonder-tales, and did a magnificent job.

And whether or not you think L. Frank Baum was right that the tales before his time were too dark, you’ve got to admire his response. He didn’t just complain. He did something about it, and created the kind of tales he wanted to see. If today’s critics would only do the same.