...children’s fiction necessitates distillation: at its best, it renders in their purest, most archetypal forms hope, hunger, joy, fear. Think of children’s books as literary vodka. [loc. 127]
Rundell's essay on the experience of reading children's books as an adult, and rediscovering the hope, the subversion, the miracles that overcome chaos. Rundell is immensely eloquent, and uses her own experience as a popular writer for children to describe the crafting of stories that contain 'the things that I most urgently and desperately want children to know and adults to remember'. She writes about how the best children's books describe the world as a huge and mysterious place, full of things yet to be learnt or encountered or overcome: and she reminds us that children, politically and economically powerless, have a different perspective on the world. The big emotions in children's books -- the victories over darkness, the importance of bravery and loyalty and love -- are a counterbalance to the great unknowns: they're layered with the darker knowledge of the adult writing, and often with a weight of myth and legend that won't necessarily be known (or even perceived) by a child reading, but will add depth to their experience of the book.
I do read quite a few children's books, even though I am so old. (Still, forever, working on wisdom.) And I love the sense of recognition when I'm rereading an old favourite, and the envy I feel for children reading today with so many more marvellous, diverse, questioning and fantastical books to read.
Fulfils the ‘about books’ rubric of the Something Bookish Reading Challenge.
Fulfils the ‘Non-fiction recommended by a friend ’ rubric of the 52 books in 2024 reading challenge. Thanks, Claire!
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