team tinkerbell

Jim Hawkins and Long John Silver

So I was listening to this amazing program from Wisconsin Public Radio called To The Best of Our Knowledge the other day and had an epiphany. One of their podcasts, entitled "The Uses of Enchantment," explores the concepts of fairy tales, magic, and imagination. Authors such as Neil Gaiman (one of my faves!) and A.S. Byatt were interviewed. It was very very fascinating and enjoyable...here's the link - Listen!

Anyway, a few of the interviews (especially the one with Byatt) and all of that talk about enchantment got me thinking. And here was what I realized: Our society needs a revival of classic "children's literature." I don't mean picture-books. I mean fantastic fairy-tale-adventures. Something to pique our imaginations and transport us to the good old days of fairy-princess costumes and rock forts in the back yard. We (adults) need battles on the high seas, true love, fairies & goblins, magic carpets, sea monsters, swashbuckling, and similarly wonderful things. (Admit it: You loved playing with today's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea-inspired Google doodle.) More importantly, actual children need them, too. Especially the kind of children who don't realize that they need those things anymore: Teenagers.

I have seen far too many kids in high school English classes made miserable by the old-fashioned prose and veiled social/political commentary often found in their assigned reading. But I don't think teachers should only assign the likes of Harry Potter and Twilight either. Students do need to read from the canon of Western literature, at least some of the time. But why not seek some middle ground? Have them read classic "children's literature," which I keep referring to in quotations because it qualifies as just really fabulous grownup literature nowadays. Peter Pan, The Jungle Book, Ivanhoe, and Treasure Island, immediately come to mind.  Have students read classic literature purely for the sake of a good story, rather than for the sake of digging out some obscure theme about the human condition. (And, if you want to get serious about it, you can find serious themes and references in children's lit, too. But why? It's just as wonderful when taken at face value.) Kids are carrying too much baggage as it is. And I don't care how old and cool someone thinks they are, there is no one who doesn't love stories about knights in shining armor, pirates, princesses, and animals that can talk.



If I had my way, teachers would toss The Scarlet Letter, Great Expectations, and Hamlet in favor of this "children's literature." It can be used to teach the same valuable lessons on plot, character, diction, syntax, and all that good stuff, while also being much more enjoyable. Students need language arts skills and exposure to classic literature, which doesn't need to entail torturing them with Dickens's literary musings on industrialized Victorian society. That only makes them tune out and teaches them, literally, to hate and fear the classics. Just sayin'. (By the way, Charles Dickens is one of my favorite authors. But I'm a little too in touch with reality to think that the average high schooler would agree, no matter how hard I try to show them that his stories are actually really exciting and relevant.)

Let me know what you think. And all of us remember being beat over the head with a classic novel in high school. Sometimes it really works, sometimes it really doesn't. I want to hear about some of your own experiences.