…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 2009, Neil Gaiman won the Newbery Medal, the most distinguished award in the field of children’s literature, for “The Graveyard Book,” a work that makes no bones about its subject matter. Here is what children read on Page 1: “There was a hand in the darkness and it held a knife.” A few paragraphs later, the wielder of the knife has finished off three family members and is on his way to the nursery to slash the throat of the fourth. It is up to the hero, Bod ”” short for Nobody ”” to find the killer.
These books frequently offer expansive meditations on mortality, with heroes on crusades against death. J. K. Rowling described the Harry Potter books as “largely about death.” The drama of the series begins with the murder of Harry’s parents and turns on an emphatically humorless villain who seeks immortality at any price. Philip Pullman’s trilogy, “His Dark Materials,” takes on similar themes. It rewrites the Fall of Man ”” instead of being expelled from Paradise, the disobedient, curious heroine seeks redemption by journeying to the desolate Land of the Dead.
Seriously? This chairwoman of myth at Hahvahd doesn’t recall that the Brothers Grimm’s original tales were so frightful that they were watered down for our children? And they were still plenty dark and violent, anyway. (Btw, there’s going to be an adult TV series about Grimm’s fairy tales that looks rather interesting. Can’t remember which network but it’s starting this month.)
As for Lewis Carroll and his “magic camera,” the fact is that he was something of a voyeur and invented gadgets that he used to spy on unsuspecting women. Hardly charming. I know this because I had to do a research paper on Lewis Carroll when I was in high school. And when I found this information and included it in my paper, my teacher got ticked and downgraded me to a C for offering extraneous information. Heh. She initially wanted to flunk me on it but I got my parents involved. They wondered why a teacher would assign a research project and then try to censor the information gathered? The C was a compromise grade we had to accept.
Anyhoo, this writer seems to be giving in to her nostalgic blind spots much like my high school teacher did. There is some really good young adult lit. out there and, yes, there’s some that’s rubbish. I may agree with her on The Hunger Games. I haven’t read the books but the premise for them seems appalling and now the first one is being made into a movie. Before I demonize them, though, I will read them. I wonder if she has — so many don’t.