WRB—Children’s Literature Supplement, Feb. 2025

“a wonderful quiet activity”

If you live anywhere north of the Mason-Dixon Line or not in California, February is the pits. Because of this, and inspired by her recent trip to Florida, Sarah has included some summer-y recommendations in today’s newsletter. Additionally, she muses on a Katherine Rundell piece making the rounds, and Sam Leith’s words and work make a few appearances.

Children’s lit meets academia

Not everyone loves a dragon. There are many attacks you can level at fantasy (often with justice): escapist, ridiculous, indulgent, coy, repetitive. One of the Inklings—nobody agrees which—is supposed to have groaned at Tolkien’s reading: “By god, not another bloody elf!” Fantasy, with its limitless possibilities, has lured some of the worst writing around. There are books that give you nothing except relentless battles, didactic hectoring or crass sentimentalism—but then there are many very bad songs, and it does not turn us off the concept of music. There are many bad dinners, but it does not turn us off the concept of feasting.

So says a tidbit of author Katherine Rundell’s lengthy essay “Why children’s books?” The essay covers a lot of ground, with everything from fantasy to capitalism to the author’s own work making an appearance. Sarah confesses she’s yet to read Rundell’s literature, but finds the titles interesting. As for the piece, it could probably make its point in fewer words, but it had some excellent moments, such as Rundell’s observations and quotations from other writers on fantasy novels. This line near her ending though, left Sarah pondering: It will always be worth showing them how to build an internal blueprint for happiness. Nothing about being alive demands joy.” [Emphasis added.]

This seems to be a wildly sweeping generalization—and evidence of a too-confident sense of one’s own line of work. Really? Literature is all there is in life that demands joy? If so, this is a strange and stunted worldview, a historically illiterate one, and a Godless one. Nature can only bring you joy if you read about it in a book?

Additionally, Sarah has said it before and will say it again, but whatever Rundell thinks, Philip Pullman’s books have no place in a child’s library.

So, read the essay (if you have time for 5,500-plus words), but Sarah recommends that when you do so, take it with quite a few grains of salt.

Dreaming of summer

If you’ve forgotten what the sun’s rays feel like, here are a few chapter books and picture books to help you while away these chilly hours:

• Strega Nona Takes a Vacation by Tomie dePaola (2000)

• Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White (1952)

• Strawberry Girl by Lois Lenski (1945)

• Gone-Away Lake by Elizabeth Enright (1957)

• Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransom (1930)

• Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey (1948)

• Summer Story by Jill Barklem (1980)

• The Relatives Came by Cynthia Rylant (1986)

• The Gardner by Sarah Stewart (1997)

• Corgiville Fair by Tasha Tudor (1971)

• A Summertime Song by Irene Haas (1997)

The haunt continues

Sam Leith recently wrote a history of children’s reading titled The Haunted Wood (2024), and it’s been mentioned in this newsletter, as well as excerpted for The Walrus and reviewed in The Literary Review of Canada. When her local library obtains a copy, Sarah hopes to read it, but until then, reviews are all she has. And they make her continually less enthusiastic about the actual book. Her fears aren’t concrete at the moment, and she will need to read the book before passing much judgement on it. There seems to be a strange academitization (a word Sarah is inventing) of children’s literature going on at the moment, and what Sarah’s read of it so far hasn’t been encouraging.

[The Haunted Wood was an Upcoming book in WRB—Oct. 19, 2024, and we linked to an earlier review in WRB—Children’s Literature Supplement, Sept. 2024.]

American Girl of the past

One of Sarah’s favorite second-hand finds are American Girl publications from the 1990s. These range from cookbooks to paper dolls to craft books, and are easy to miss on the shelves of your local Half-Price Books or hidden amongst smell shoes and torn scarves at the near-by Goodwill. But when you do discover one, don’t let it out of your sight. These are treasures—and ones worth having and using.

Also, if you can get your hands on any of the American Girl Magazine editions from the early 2000s, do so. They are charming—a throwback to a sweeter era. Sarah and her sisters adored this magazine, appreciating the stories, advice, and games which came in each issue.

If you ever do find some, perhaps you could surprise your own daughter by having them show up in the mailbox for her each month! Though she may catch on that the dates don’t quite line up. . . .

What the kids are reading