The first of today’s guest entries from Rebekah Fitzsimmons’s “Golden Age of Children’s Literature” course comes from Abigail Davis, who considers a children’s classic through a contemporary lens.
By Abigail Davis
As a child I was never very good at reading the books my parents, or my school, wanted me to. While they plied me with classic children’s literature I would turn up my nose, happy instead to be left to my Magic Tree House books. Glad that I was reading, my parents would generally let me be but my school was sure that my classmates and I could benefit from reading ancient books that were supposedly classics and more suitable for me to read. But how can you determine if a text is suitable for young audiences? Is it classifying a text based on its use of difficult vocabulary? Or perhaps some themes are better suited to certain ages. In my experience children will read whatever they want, and somehow books that we don’t deem “suitable” for them will always fall into their hands. Often the books we want the younger audience to read fall along the wayside, abandoned for books that children are actually interested in reading.
For instance, when I was a child I was given a copy of The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. It was a beautiful book and my mom was pleased to tell me that it was a classic, the seemingly golden standard for children’s literature. I avoided that book like the plague. It seemed boring to me; a girl finds a garden, big whoop! After reading the book now I regret not reading it when I was younger. The Secret Garden is full of wonderful imagery, from descriptions of the English moor to the depiction of a surly young girl learning to become a better person. I found myself smiling at references to other children’s literature books I’ve read; such as the new portrayal of a sweeter, less mischievous Peter Pan through the book’s Dickon. It is full of lessons that every child should be exposed to; lessons ranging from the importance of being polite to the people around you to knowing exercising will make you healthier. This is a story of growth, love and acceptance where 3 strange, misfit children become friends and through that friendship become normal, happy and healthy kids. If I had to choose an age for which this book would be most appropriate, based on the content matter and language, I would say any child from eight to 12 would enjoy it. Getting them to read it, however, would be a whole other story.
While The Secret Garden does have many great qualities, such as the ones I mentioned above, it is still over a hundred years old and in many ways not geared to be a children’s book. When I finally read the book I did enjoy it but I noticed a few off putting things, not in the least a few heavily racist conversations between Mary and her maid about the native people of India. As this is an older British novel it may be hard for some of the lessons from the book to impact young readers because like many other books from this age it references ideas, materials and jokes that are no longer commonly known. I do think that there is merit in this book though so if you have the option to recommend this book to a child you should.
Abigail is an undergraduate at the University of Florida.
Kid Lit at UF 