READER 1 – BLOCK 6
The Same but Different: Conservatism and Revolution in
Children's Fiction
Peter Hunt
v Children's books, despite all the different titles and colourful
packaging, are all rather similar.
v The same
sorts of things happen to the same sorts of people in the same sorts of situations and, especially, the endings
are all much the same.
Ex:
-
Vulnerable character sets out on a quest
with some supportive friends; adventures in strange place; returns home
security. (Harry Potter)
-
Times are changing; adults are
unreliable; comfortable past, uncertain future. (Tom's Midnight Garden)
-
The world is jungle; growing up; you become part of the life around you (The Other Side of Truth - The Tale of Peter Rabbit)
v Sameness and difference is the essence of children's books; they
have many recurrent ideas.
v As
Perry Nodelman: [some] themes are central issues in
our conceptions of childhood and the process of maturing ... they combine what one wishes for with what one
must accept, [and] deal with freedom and
constriction, home and exile, escape and acceptance, and all create balances'.
v Stories for children usually have happy endings: things often
happen in safe spaces - idyllic rural settings or symbolic gardens, schools
and families.
v Quest and adventure
stories are produced for boys, involving initiation, toughness, even sacrifice
- and then a return to the safety of home.
v Romances are produced for
girls, involving families, finding identity, and, at extremes, finding partners
or finding self-determination.
v The characters are
familiar: the 'feisty' girl who overcomes adult prejudices, the 'manly' boy who
helps conquer the empire.
v In
school stories,
initiation rituals and insider/outsider
relationships; in a pony, class conflict and goodness rewarded, in 'other-world' fantasies there is a catalogue of wizards, monsters, strange companions, and desperate battles.
v Different kinds
of stories are popular at different times, and this tells us a lot about what a
society thinks about childhood at any given moment.
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