CHILDHOOD IN Children

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CHILDHOOD INChildrens Literature
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The Ideal Child

• Children in childrens literature are constructed
  in two ways
• As characters
• As implied readers
• Concepts of what children are or should be are
  constructed not by peers, but by adults.
• The fictional child, both as character and reader
  are informed by changeable assumptions about the
  nature and value of children and childhood.

Jan van Eyck Madonna with the Child Reading
circa 1435
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• What different ideas about children and childhood
  do these photos bring to your mind?

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An audience defined genre

• Childrens literature is defined by its readers,
  not its writers.
• Adults are in complete control of its production
  writers, editors, publishers, reviewers,
  purchasers.
• Its always, at some level, concerned with
  instruction.
• The relationship between author and reader should
  be one of respect, not condescension.
• What does true childrens literature sound
  like?
• Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream
• Throw your teacher overboard and listen to her
  scream.

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Six Western Conceptions of Childhood

• Our views of childhood change, mesh, and
  intermingle.

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A Confused Mix

• I will move chronologically.
• New concepts do not replace the old but add to
  them.
• Each new idea builds upon enriches, and confuses
  our ideas about childhood

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Concepts of childhood

1. Sinful The Puritans (1550s -1700s)
2. Rational John Locke (late 17th century)
3. Natural Jean-Jacques Rousseau (early 18th
   century)
4. Consumer John Newberry (early 18th century)
5. Pure William Blake (early 19th century)
6. Intelligent Lewis Carroll (mid 19th century)

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1. The Sinful Child

• The Puritans (1500s through 1600s)
• Children are born sinful.
• That sin needs to be purged
• Children learn through fear.
• Children should learn to read to study the Bible.
• Stories of martyrs detailing horrible deaths were
  thought especially appropriate for children.
• Strict learning environment.

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Recommended Reading
The protagonists in these books provide models to
aspire to. They died slow, gruesome deaths, but
were spiritually strong
A Token for Children Being an Exact Account of
the Conversion, Holy and Exemplary Lives and
Joyful Deaths of Several Young Children (1672),

• Foxes Book of Martyrs (1563)

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The New England Primer (1683-1830)
Sin begins the alphabet Importance on books and
the Bible Harsh laws of nature Punishment for
those who do wrong Natural beauty Corporal
punishment for laziness
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Idealistically Virtuous Children

• Today, books like William Bennetts The
  Childrens Book of Virtues (1998) are extremely
  popular, especially with religious families.
• Children, like those on the cover, are
  idealistically virtuous.

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2. The Rational Child

• John Locke (1632-1704)
• Some Thoughts Concerning
• Education, 1693
• The mind of a child is a blank slate. Tabula
  Rasa.
• People are born without innate ideas.
• People are NOT born sinful (Augustine The
  Puritans).
• People are NOT born with a certain logic
  (Cartesian).

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Training children

• Children need to learn how to become rational
  people in order to be good adults in a
  well-ordered community.
• Children need to learn to resist their natural
  impulses in favor or reason. Curb natural desire.
• Locke recommended
• instruction with delight.
• Locke recommended moral fables because of their
  simple cause-effect relationship.
• Reynard the Fox and Aesops Fables

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Moral tales are still common

• Murcus Pfisters The Rainbow Fish follows Lockes
  idea by presenting a lesson about sharing through
  a beautifully illustrated book about fish.

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3. The Natural Child

• Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)
• French Philosopher Educational Thinker
• Emile or, On Education 1762
• Directly challenged Lockes ideas.
• Its most important to developing the pupils
  character and moral sense.
• Society corrupts. Children learn best by figuring
  things out for themselves naturally.

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Robinson Crusoe (1726)

• Natural Man. The Noble Savage. Primitive people
  are more pure. Children are more pure.
• Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe is the best book
  for children. It provides the best model.

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A Modern Robinson

• In Maurice Sendaks Where the Wild Things Are,
  Max works out his feelings of anger on his own by
  traveling to an island of wild things and
  subduing them.

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4. The Child Consumer

• John Newbery (1713-1767)
• Sometimes thought of as the first publisher of
  children's books.
• He recognized children as a valuable market.
• He knew middle class parents want to raise their
  children well.

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A Little Pretty Pocket-book. (1744)
John Newberrys first big publishing success for
children. These were packaged with a ball for
boys and a pincushion for girls.
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Children have influence

• Childrens voices carry weight in society.
• Pester Power
• Newbery flattered children by appealing directly
  to them.
• Children in stories start to determine their own
  fate.

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A Child-centered Economy

• In Dav Pilkeys The Adventures of Captain
  Underpants (1997), children produce goods, buy,
  and sell them independent of (and in opposition
  to) adult control.

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5. The Pure Innocent Child

• William Blake (1757-1827)
• Songs of innocence (1789)
• Child is symbolic of the best of humanity.
• Children come from heaven.
• The child in you needs to be cherished.
• Childrens purity and innocence gives them a kind
  of wisdom.
• Knowledge of the cruel world forever corrupts
  this innocence. It is impossible to reclaim.
• Also William Wordsworth.

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The boy who never grew up

• J. M. Barries Peter Pan 1911
• He is innocent and heartless.
• To stay innocent, he has no memory and he is
  entirely self-centered.
• But he is also represents an object of desire.
• Adults attracted to his perpetual childhood more
  than children.

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Childrens fiction impossible?

• Rose insists that books written for children
  serve adult interests by helping make sure that
  child readers conceive of themselves in ways that
  fulfill societys expectations, and not according
  to what is necessarily true about childhood

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6. The Intelligent Child

• Lewis Carroll (1832-1898)
• Alices Adventures in Wonderland 1865
• Children recognizes and laugh at adult attempts
  to socialize her
• The adult world is strange and curious place, but
  children can figure things out for themselves.
• Children react against societal pressures to
  conform.
• Adults arent always right.

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Parody of moralistic poem
Sir Isaac Watts Lewis Carroll
Against Idleness and Mischief (industrious) How doth the little busy bee Improve each shining hour, And gather honey all the day From every opening flower! How Doth the Little Crocodile (lazy) How doth the little crocodile Improve his shining tail, And pour the waters of the Nile On every golden scale!
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Two more wise kids

• Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain
• The good-bad boy
• He lies, cheats, and disobeys, and is universally
  loved, while at the end, he gets both the gold
  and the girl.
• The Wizard of Oz, L Frank Baum
• Uncovers the adult fraud
• The great and mighty Oz is exposed as an adult
  fraud by a young girl and her little dog Toto.

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Children subversively powerful

• Peter disobeys mother.
• This visual pun from Peter Rabbit makes fun of
  the adult human.
• Who is on four legs and who is on two?

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An intelligent child

• In Beverly Clearys Ramona the Pest, Ramona hears
  her teacher read the story on the first day of
  kindergarten. She asks,

How did Mike Mulligan go to the bathroom when he
was digging the basement of the town hall?
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Review

• Sinful child Puritans
• Moralistic literature with predeterimined truth.
• Reading is good for all children
• Rational child Locke
• Teach with delight
• Create reasonable, ethical adults
• Natural Child Rouseau
• Children have more agency since they learn on
  their own.
• Society corrupts, also confuses.

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Review, continued

• Child Consumer Newbery
• Children can enjoy and want (buy) books.
• Children have economic and social power.
• Pure Child Blake
• Children are models of purity and goodness
• Childhood serves adult objectives.
• Intelligent Child Carroll
• Opens door to vast array of childrens stories.
• Society corrupts, also confuses.

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Conclusion

• Societys conception of childhood continues to
  change and adapt, and its these ideas as confused
  as they sometimes may be, that form the basis for
  constructing child characters and readers in
  childrens literature.

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The (First) Golden Age of Childrens Literature

• From Alice and to Pooh (1924-1928)
• Idealized the child as fanciful and free
• Children can best learn how to be good through an
  appeal to the imagination rather than through
  asserting rules of behavior
• Liberation from didacticism, these texts broke
  the rules for childrens writing by blurring
  traditional rules of right and wrong

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Why the golden age

• Books cheaper, less precious
• Smaller families
• Universal education for both genders
• Good authors
• Advances in printing technology
• a pleasurable alternatives to the "dull reality"

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Nonsense! Foolishness!

• Power of nonsense.
• Some books give readers credit for being able to
  discern what is appropriate and inappropriate.
• Understanding nonsense as nonsense is a
  fundamental critical skill.
• We can laugh at foolishness without imitating it.
• The best books examine the boundaries.

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Common situations for children in literature