ENGLISH PAPER

C. Dice

2012 1

Children’s Writers on Children’s Literature

English 3401

―Certainly we want to protect our children from new and painful experiences that are beyond their

emotional comprehension and that intensify anxiety; and to a point we can prevent premature exposure

to such experiences. That is obvious. But what is just as obvious—and what is too often overlooked—

is the fact that from their earliest years children live on familiar terms with disrupting emotions, that

fear and anxiety are an intrinsic part of their everyday lives, that they continually cope with frustration

as best they can. And it is through fantasy that children achieve catharsis. It is the best means they

have for taming all Wild Things.‖

--Maurice Sendak, Caldecott Medal Acceptance Speech, 1963

―It's revealed an issue that I'm surprised about, which is the new preciousness that's been brought to

literature for children now. There is an abject fear of instilling any sort of dramatic trauma, of sadness,

on the children who are receiving a story. ... And of course that was never a great concern in the past.

The great children's stories that we all grew up with, there are always moments of great tragedy and

moving moments of loss in the book that we weren't afraid of -- as long as you bring them [young

readers] back by the end and bring them to where a reader should be, a child should be. ―

--Berkeley Breathed, on the concerns that the sadness of his novel Flawed Dogs might

be too sad for young readers. (CNN.com)

―But in 1980, the censors crawled out of the woodwork, seemingly overnight, organized and

determined. Not only would they decide what their children could read, but what all children could

read. Challenges to books quadrupled within months, and we'll never know how many teachers, school

librarians and principals quietly removed books to avoid trouble.

“Fear. I believe that censorship grows out of fear, and because fear is contagious, some parents are

easily swayed. Book banning satisfies their need to feel in control of their children's lives. This fear is

often disguised as moral outrage. They want to believe that if their children don't read about it, their

children won't know about it. And if they don't know about it, it won't happen. Today, it's not only

language and sexuality (the usual reasons given for banning my books) that will land a book on the

censors' hit list. It's Satanism, New Age-ism and a hundred other isms, some of which would make you

laugh if the implications weren't so serious. Books that make kids laugh often come under suspicion;

so do books that encourage kids to think, or question authority; books that don't hit the reader over the

head with moral lessons are considered dangerous.

“Ideas. Censors don't want children exposed to ideas different from their own. If every individual with

an agenda had his/her way, the shelves in the school library would be close to empty. I wish the

censors could read the letters kids write.

Dear Judy,

I don't know where I stand in the world. I don't know who I am.

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That's why I read, to find myself.

Elizabeth, age 13

But it's not just the books under fire now that worry me. It is the books that will never be written. The

books that will never be read. And all due to the fear of censorship. As always, young readers will be

the real losers.‖

http://www.judyblume.com/censorship.php

See also an entire article on Blume’s reaction to censorship of the Harry Potter books:

http://www.judyblume.com/censorship/potter.php

In what ways has your religious conviction informed your writing? And would you comment on

the presence (or lack ) of religious content, specifically Christian, in recent children's literature

(say the last fifteen years or so)?

―I think it was Lewis who said something like: "The book cannot be what the writer is not." What you

are will shape your book whether you want it to or not. I am Christian, so that conviction will pervade

the book even when I make no conscious effort to teach or preach. Grace and hope will inform

everything I write. You're asking me to comment on fifteen years of 5000 or so books a year. Whew!

We live in a Post-Christian society. Therefore, not many of those writers will be Christians or

adherents of any of the traditional faiths. Self-consciously Christian (or Jewish or Muslim) writing will

be sectarian and tend to propaganda and therefore have very little to say to persons outside that

particular faith community. The challenge for those of us who care about our faith and about a hurting

world is to tell stories which will carry the words of grace and hope in their bones and sinews and not

wear them like fancy dress. ―

--Katherine Paterson

http://www.terabithia.com/questions.html

―Last summer I gave a speech at the annual children's book conference at Simmons College in Boston,

and afterwards, during the question-and-answer period, a young woman asked me why I don't write

books about the current societal problems of American children. She was especially concerned, she

said, about poverty, drugs, and sexual abuse. These were topics, she said, that needed to be treated in

books for children because such books could help children to deal with them. My answer was, I'm

afraid, rather knee-jerk and glib. "That" I said grandly, "is not the purpose of literature."

. . .

―Given all these demands, it's a wonder anyone ever undertakes the writing of fiction at all, at least

fiction for children. It may in fact be impossible to write a book for children which meet all three of

these requirements. It may be impossible to enlarge the soul, meet present and specific needs, and

please the reader all at the same time.

. . .

―It's twaddle to say that writers should sit down and try deliberately to create work of lasting value, and

that, by so trying, they should avoid dealing with the social problems of the moment because if they

do, their work is doomed to eventual obscurity. If there's anything to be learned in our present-day

world, it's that ―lasting value" is a term of dubious significance. I've still got my mother's old metal

kitchen grater. It has four sides and a handle on top, and you can grate cheese and slice cucumbers with

it, and one side has large perforations with such wickedly sharp edges that it looks like a medieval

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instrument of torture. I don't know what that side is for. My mother probably got this tool when she

was married in 1928, so it's 61 years old and still going strong. It has survived my mother, and it will

survive me. That's lasting value for you. It is still possible to create kitchen tools of lasting value, but

nobody, least of all me, can say what will make a work of fiction survive. And even if we could, I defy

any writer to create, by an act of will, a work with any built-in guarantee. As a motive for writing, that

would be arrogant nonsense. The ages will decide what lasts, not the writer.

―So - literature has hundreds of purposes and I for one no longer care. But one question remains: Do

we, as writers for children, really have any special responsibility? We do. We have a responsibility to

do the very best work we're capable of. And I still think that means we should each stick to what we

know, and do what we do best. Some of us will write movingly and effectively about the current

societal problems of children and may be able to bring comfort to those children if only by showing

them they are not alone. Some of us will write funny books, light-hearted books, and thank goodness

for them! Some of us will write about ideas and snippets of philosophy we find puzzling and

interesting. Some of us will write about sports, or the solving of cops-and-robbers mysteries, or aliens

from outer space, or dinosaurs. All of it will be literature, all fiction. All will serve one purpose or

another. Some will be good, some not so good, again depending on who's doing the choosing. But, for

pity's sake, let us hope that these books will first and foremost bring pleasure to their readers,

regardless of which of the hundreds of purposes they serve, because otherwise it won't matter what

they're about, or whether they're good or not so good, and it won't matter whether a given writer spent

ten weeks or ten years writing one of them. because no child will bother to read them. And if a child is

forced to read one in school, he will forget it as quickly as possible afterwards.

―Maybe, after all, there is one single purpose for literature - one foremost purpose, anyway. Maybe the

giving of pleasure is the purpose. I find I could care about that. The purpose of literature is to give

pleasure to the reader. I will leave it to somebody else to define what pleasure is. It could be a topic for

some other paper: what is the purpose of pleasure? I hope nobody will ask me to deal with it.‖

--Natalie Babbitt, ―The Purpose of Literature – and Who Cares? ―

The Ann Carroll Moore Lecture at the New York Public Library, 1989.

http://www.thencbla.org/boardspeeches/babbittmoorelec.html