Children's Literature: Not Just for Children

While the popular media's attention has been focused on “The Politics of Fear” cover of the July 21, 2008 issue of The New Yorker and on Ryan Lizza’s article in the same issue about Barack Obama’s political history in Chicago, there is another article of interest in that issue – particularly to those of us with a particular interest in “all things reading”. Jill Lepore is a professor of history at Harvard and chair of the History and Literature Program. Her article in this issue, “The Lion and the Mouse”, describes the early history of children’s libraries and the battle over the publication of Stuart Little by E. B. White.

To most of us a children’s room is an integral part of every library. But it was not always so. There was a time when libraries were restricted to those over 14 or 16 and also to boys. But that changed thanks in large part to the efforts of Anne Carroll Moore, the first children’s librarian at the New York Public Library when it opened in 1911. She introduced tables and window seats low to the floor, story-tellers and story hours, borrowing privileges for children, and removed “Silence” signs. Ms. Moore contributed serious books reviews of children’s literature and organized Children’s Book Weeks. We take all of these things for granted now.

But for all of these contributions, and for reasons explored in the article, Ms. Moore took a dislike to Stuart Little when it was published in 1945 and tried to get it banned from schools and libraries. For a time she was partly successful. The author seems to think that Ms. Moore may have been responsible for denying E. B. White the Newbery Medal.

Of course I had to see what all the controversy was about by reading Stuart Little myself. Although there was a copy on my own children’s bookshelf I cannot honestly say that I remember their reading it. Certainly I did not read it to them.

The detailed black-and-white illustrations by Garth Williams are a treasure of careful lines, detail and shading. I happened to notice that in the illustration of George Little’s bedroom there is a banner from Cornell. Why, of all the colleges, would it be Cornell? It turns out that E. B. White graduated from Cornell. A nice touch! No doubt there are many more like that throughout the book if one were to take time to study them.

I have to say I was startled by a passage in the chapter “The Schoolroom.” Stuart Little has offered to be a substitute teacher for a day. After dispensing rather quickly with arithmetic, spelling, writing and social studies, he poses to the “scholars” (children of unspecified age), “…why wouldn’t it be a good idea if we just talked about something.” There are the typical all-boy responses: a snake winding itself around your wrist, the fat lady in the circus with hair on her chin. And then Lydia Lacey speaks up: “Could we talk about sin and vice?” I’m thinking: what do the children of 1945 think of this? Do they read right past it? Do they go to the nearest adult for clarification? (If I were that adult, how would I respond?) Do they need no clarification? Is it any different for children of today, 53 years later? What was White’s intention? Humor?

This is a book which, like the television show Sesame Street, appeals to the children in its audience on one level and to its adult audience on an entirely different level. It is by turns very funny and poignantly sad. Perhaps that is why Stuart Little has now sold more than four million copies.

A interview with Jill Lepore and Roger Angell, E.B. White’s stepson, can be found at www.newyorker.com

Intruders

In 2005 our Book Club read Valerie Martin's Possession, a dark and disturbing story about a loveless marriage between a Louisiana sugar plantation owner and his wife, and the volatile relationship both of them have with the female slave he has given her as a wedding gift. (Click here to see our entire Book Club catalog). So when I started her latest novel Trespass I was expecting another brooding and violent period piece. Instead the novel opens with a contemporary scene – a mother, who has traveled to Manhattan from her rural home upstate, meets her college student son and his new girlfriend at a restaurant for lunch. Toby is clearly besotted with his darkly exotic girlfriend Salome Drago, a Croatian refugee. But his mother Chloe is not impressed. The early chapters expand on the tensions which grow as Toby's devotion to Salome and Chloe's mistrust of her lead to clashes between the mother and son, despite the best efforts of Chloe's amiable husband Brendan to keep the peace between mother and son.. Martin presents a realistic portrayal of a mother who feels loving and protective towards her son, and can't help thinking that his girlfriend is taking advantage of his naïveté. But a darker undercurrent slowly appears as the story progresses.

As the title implies there is a trespasser in Chloe's life, a foreign-looking poacher hunting rabbits on her land. At the same time she is illustrating an edition of Wuthering Heights, and her woodcuts of Heathcliff, a dark and mysterious outsider much like Salome, seem to reflect this menacing mood. And in New York anti-war protests are increasing during the lead up to the 2003 Iraq invasion. The details of Salome's family history in Bosnia, vaguely hinted at early in the book, begin to emerge. The menacing feeling that Martin has slowly built finally explodes in harrowing scenes of the Bosnian genocide. What began as a domestic story widens to encompass a larger picture of the effects of war. But at the same time it remains a story about parents and children, husbands and wives. Martin never lets you feel settled in your view of any of her characters. They are complex, and in some ways all experience the dark effects of trespass.

Although I was a little disappointed in the tidy way Martin wrapped up her story, I tremendously enjoyed her dispassionate storytelling and her ability to weave the political and the personal into a compelling narrative.

A Real Thriller

We have just recently learned that in late 2007 Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran. Over the next decade or so as more details of these operations become known, it will not be surprising that some works of fiction will take such operations as their background in much that same way that Joan Didion’s The Last Thing He Wanted has as its context the covert operations with the Nicaraguan contra forces in 1984.

I don’t know how I came to have this book on my bookshelf but what a terrific surprise. All I knew of Joan Didion was Slouching Toward Bethlehem, a 1968 collection of essays describing her experiences in California in the 1960s, and The Year of Magical Thinking, an account of the year (2004) following the death of her husband. In between she published this novel, a “thriller” in every best sense of the word.

The main character is a woman reporter for the Washington Post who quits her job covering the 1984 Presidential primaries and subsequently, in doing a favor for her father, becomes drawn into danger. The writing is superb and the structure taut. No need to feel guilty about wasting your time. Just be sure that once you start you have cleared your calendar to finish.

Readers better versed than I in history will have an advantage in appreciating the allusions and references throughout. But even I understood “November 22 1963” without further explanation – because none is provided.

I’m not sure that I really understand even now what actually happened at the end of the book. I would love to be able to discuss it.

An Author's View

Ann Patchett’s fifth novel, “Run” was the topic for our monthly book club discussion. One of our members had downloaded an interview with Ann Patchett and Michael Silverblatt, from the “Bookworm” internet site. Listening to Ann Patchett talk about her new novel “Run” was a wonderful addition to our book club discussion. Ms. Patchett is extremely articulate and passionate about her writing. “Run” is a story about the Doyle family, Bernard Doyle, an Irish Catholic politician, and his wife had only one child so they adopted two black children, Tip and Teddy. The birth mother of these boys, Tennessee, appears one night with the child she is raising as her own, Kenya. Ann Patchett asserts that the reality of her story does exist, and that people in general are nice (at least the people she knows) and this is how she sees the world. Her characters were loosely based on people she knew. For example, she based Tip on an ichthyology major she knew at Harvard because she was intrigued by someone who was that smart. She also loosely based the father, Bernard Doyle, on the patriarch of the Kennedy clan, Joseph P. Kennedy. The sons Tip and Teddy were named for the famous Boston politicians, Tip O’Neil and Teddy Kennedy.

One critic suggested that the title “Run” suggests many things, Kenya’s passionate desire to run and Bernard Doyle’s passionate desire to run for political office. Our group discussed the question of the events of the story being contrived. One critic called the book “over plotted”. Ms. Patchett answered that question by stating that the world we see is only a small part of the overall scheme. And, what other people see as being contrived she sees as something that is possible. She wants to tell a story. If a critic says the story is contrived, she answers that that is how she wants to write the story. It is logical in the world of this story and she is the “puppeteer” of the story.

The main theme of the story and the question that Ann Patchett (and Bernard Doyle) ask, is: “If you are smart and privileged, do you have a larger responsibility than what you personally desire?” “Do you owe some sort of debt because you have been given so much?” This is the question that Tip and Teddy struggle with in “Run”. Tip wants to be an ichthyologist but his father wants him to be a doctor. Teddy wants to be a priest but his father wants him to be a politician. The events that unfold in the 24 hour time span of the story greatly affect those decisions. Another question that the author asks, is: “What is family?” “Is it the family you are born into or the one you create?” The characters in this story do not know what their true relationships are, but nevertheless they form a family that loves and supports one another.

The end of the book is an epilogue which more or less ties up the loose ends of the story. Again, this is a technique that Ms. Patchett uses…… “If you set something in motion you must be true to it.”

Listening to this interview gave us, as readers, insight into what the author was trying to say, the techniques she uses to tell the story and propel it forward, and what she ultimately wants the reader to gain from reading this story.

You can listen to Ann Patchett’s interview with Michael Silverblatt at http:www.kcrw.com/etc/programs/bw/bw080103ann_patchett