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[CCBC-Net] CHILDREN ON THEIR OWN (posted for Kerry Madden)
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From: Maia Cheli-Colando <maia>
Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2005 18:36:32 -0700
/(I tried to post this earlier this week, but it didn't go through...)/
***********
Random thoughts from my six year old daughter on books with orphaned kids: /They turn out to be adventurous, but they are also sad too... the orphan kids just have so much fun... It's finding out you have to work things through in your mind... I don't sit there and think about the sad things [in the book] too much -- _life is about activity_! I don't realize that 'this is a book about an orphan' -- I think 'this is a book about a kid I like'./
I asked Ciara if it occurred to her that Anne of Green Gables (which she just read) was about an orphan. She said that it wasn't really about being an orphan, but about Anne's life after moving in with Marilla and Matthew. (Other books she has read with adopted/orphaned children include Journey to the River Sea, Ballet Shoes and the Animal Ark books.)
A thirty-second query of my thirteen year old half-sister also indicated that she didn't care if the kids were orphans or not, that it was the story that mattered. She thought the first few Snicket books were
'alright'.
I wonder, is literary orphaning a device that kids desire, or is it a device that writers use to move the action where they want it? And, now that divorce and moving homes/locales have become much more common than, say at the beginning of the twentieth century, has that motif been replaced by other ways of experiencing conflict, loss, and the corresponding freedoms and catalysts?
To genres: Surveying my own fantasy collection, I found that there/ are/ many books that manage to be adventurous while the protagonist remains in relationship. (Thus, deparenting is not a necessary key to adventure.) E.g. almost all of L'Engle's work, Cooper's The Dark is Rising sequence, The Secret Country (although orphaning does play in the alternates), Dean's Tam Lin, Duane's So You Want to Be A Wizard series, McKillip's Cygnet books (arguably not interesting to most children) and others, and Huff's The Last Wizard books.
Then, of the books where the protagonist(s) fall out of relationship, there are those where:
(1) the author orphans/abuses the protagonist to catalyze action, but isn't otherwise invested in the orphaning/abuse
(2) the orphaning/abusive moment is a significant element in the story
The former might include Lloyd Alexander's Taran Wanderer, Amy Thompson's Storyteller (not children's, but child protagonist), Fire and Hemlock (Tom), Teresa Edgerton's Teleri books, McCaffrey's Menolly books and Le Guin's Earthsea trilogy. The latter might include Fire & Hemlock
(Polly), Bonhoff's The Meri series, Marjorie Bradley Kellogg's Elements series, His Dark Materials, Sagan's Contact (not children's, but orphaning element defines much of the book), Riddlemaster and other McKillip, Yolen's One Armed Queen, most of McKinley's work, and the later Earthsea books.
Thus, only commenting on the genre I know best, I would say that one can remain in relationship and be adventurous, and that there are excellent stories in both veins (with and sans living parents). There are fantasies that are interested in relationship, and the significance of the parent role; there are also fantasies that largely ignore parents, including those where the parents are alive but rarely mentioned, e.g. Narnia.
Personally, I like the stories best that have real parents (or parent-like relations), living or dead, and some depth of feeling in the protagonist related to those parents -- and am happiest when reading those books where the parent-child relationships last and matter, e.g. Riddlemaster (Deth included), L'Engle's stories, McKillip, Dean, Cooper, etc... Even between the living and the dead, relationships can last, or they can be like ash. The latter isn't much fun to read, I feel!
Maia
p.s. It sometimes feels as if the author is cheating when s/he orphans a child sans deeper explanation... as if it were too difficult to think of a way to create action while still remaining in relationship... but isn't that the better/more honest/more lasting story in most cases, the story where relationships remain, difficult though they are?
Received on Fri 26 Aug 2005 08:36:32 PM CDT
Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2005 18:36:32 -0700
/(I tried to post this earlier this week, but it didn't go through...)/
***********
Random thoughts from my six year old daughter on books with orphaned kids: /They turn out to be adventurous, but they are also sad too... the orphan kids just have so much fun... It's finding out you have to work things through in your mind... I don't sit there and think about the sad things [in the book] too much -- _life is about activity_! I don't realize that 'this is a book about an orphan' -- I think 'this is a book about a kid I like'./
I asked Ciara if it occurred to her that Anne of Green Gables (which she just read) was about an orphan. She said that it wasn't really about being an orphan, but about Anne's life after moving in with Marilla and Matthew. (Other books she has read with adopted/orphaned children include Journey to the River Sea, Ballet Shoes and the Animal Ark books.)
A thirty-second query of my thirteen year old half-sister also indicated that she didn't care if the kids were orphans or not, that it was the story that mattered. She thought the first few Snicket books were
'alright'.
I wonder, is literary orphaning a device that kids desire, or is it a device that writers use to move the action where they want it? And, now that divorce and moving homes/locales have become much more common than, say at the beginning of the twentieth century, has that motif been replaced by other ways of experiencing conflict, loss, and the corresponding freedoms and catalysts?
To genres: Surveying my own fantasy collection, I found that there/ are/ many books that manage to be adventurous while the protagonist remains in relationship. (Thus, deparenting is not a necessary key to adventure.) E.g. almost all of L'Engle's work, Cooper's The Dark is Rising sequence, The Secret Country (although orphaning does play in the alternates), Dean's Tam Lin, Duane's So You Want to Be A Wizard series, McKillip's Cygnet books (arguably not interesting to most children) and others, and Huff's The Last Wizard books.
Then, of the books where the protagonist(s) fall out of relationship, there are those where:
(1) the author orphans/abuses the protagonist to catalyze action, but isn't otherwise invested in the orphaning/abuse
(2) the orphaning/abusive moment is a significant element in the story
The former might include Lloyd Alexander's Taran Wanderer, Amy Thompson's Storyteller (not children's, but child protagonist), Fire and Hemlock (Tom), Teresa Edgerton's Teleri books, McCaffrey's Menolly books and Le Guin's Earthsea trilogy. The latter might include Fire & Hemlock
(Polly), Bonhoff's The Meri series, Marjorie Bradley Kellogg's Elements series, His Dark Materials, Sagan's Contact (not children's, but orphaning element defines much of the book), Riddlemaster and other McKillip, Yolen's One Armed Queen, most of McKinley's work, and the later Earthsea books.
Thus, only commenting on the genre I know best, I would say that one can remain in relationship and be adventurous, and that there are excellent stories in both veins (with and sans living parents). There are fantasies that are interested in relationship, and the significance of the parent role; there are also fantasies that largely ignore parents, including those where the parents are alive but rarely mentioned, e.g. Narnia.
Personally, I like the stories best that have real parents (or parent-like relations), living or dead, and some depth of feeling in the protagonist related to those parents -- and am happiest when reading those books where the parent-child relationships last and matter, e.g. Riddlemaster (Deth included), L'Engle's stories, McKillip, Dean, Cooper, etc... Even between the living and the dead, relationships can last, or they can be like ash. The latter isn't much fun to read, I feel!
Maia
p.s. It sometimes feels as if the author is cheating when s/he orphans a child sans deeper explanation... as if it were too difficult to think of a way to create action while still remaining in relationship... but isn't that the better/more honest/more lasting story in most cases, the story where relationships remain, difficult though they are?
Received on Fri 26 Aug 2005 08:36:32 PM CDT
