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Why You Should Read Children's Books, Even Though You Are So Old and Wise
An unmissable essay on the importance of children's literature by the bestselling and award-winning author, Katherine Rundell.
Katherine Rundell – Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, and prize-winning author of five novels for children – explores how children's books ignite, and can re-ignite, the imagination; how children's fiction, with its unabashed emotion and playfulness, can awaken old hungers and create new perspectives on the world. This delightful and persuasive essay is for adult readers.
Katherine Rundell – Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, and prize-winning author of five novels for children – explores how children's books ignite, and can re-ignite, the imagination; how children's fiction, with its unabashed emotion and playfulness, can awaken old hungers and create new perspectives on the world. This delightful and persuasive essay is for adult readers.
76 pages, Hardcover
First published August 8, 2019
About the author
Katherine Rundell
35 books1,391 followersKatherine Rundell was born in 1987 and grew up in Africa and Europe. In 2008 she was elected a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. Her first book, The Girl Savage, was born of her love of Zimbabwe and her own childhood there; her second, Rooftoppers, was inspired by summers working in Paris and by night-time trespassing on the rooftops of All Souls. She is currently working on her doctorate alongside an adult novel.
Source: Katherine Rundell
Source: Katherine Rundell
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 455 reviews
February 15, 2020
If hope is a thing with feathers, then libraries are wings.
Shelved as 'wishlist'
June 7, 2020One of the (many) things people do that pisses me off is when I give a YA or middle grade book a low rating and people are like, "What do you expect it's for CHILDREN, this review is uNfaIr."
As if children should settle for less because they're children
As if children don't know good stories from bad because they're children
As if adults still can't enjoy the wonder and nostalgia of their youth
As if adults don't sometimes get sick of stressful adult stuff and yearn for a tiny bit of hope
As if children should settle for less because they're children
As if children don't know good stories from bad because they're children
As if adults still can't enjoy the wonder and nostalgia of their youth
As if adults don't sometimes get sick of stressful adult stuff and yearn for a tiny bit of hope
November 4, 2019
What a delightful little book! It's short, but it contains a wealth of uplift and inspiration on how children's books rekindle the imagination and sense of wonder in adult readers. The author points out that reading children's books is not mindless escapism, not a hiding place, but a seeking place. And we should read them without shame, unlike those grownups who acquired the Harry Potter books concealed in dull, gray, "serious" covers especially issued for adults, so they could read them on the bus or train without embarrassment.
I have been reading children's books for a long time without embarrassment. Decades ago I realized that many of these wonderful books hadn't even been written when I was at the "right" age for them, so why should I miss out on them? If I hadn't realized this, I would have missed out on Harry Potter, Paddington Bear, Narnia, and "His Dark Materials." And books by so many of my favorite authors, such as Diana Wynne Jones, Lloyd Alexander, Susan Cooper, Roald Dahl, Zilpha Keatley Snyder, and Eva Ibbotson.
After reading this book, I find myself hoping that others will be encouraged to dip into children's books and discover what they've been missing.
I have been reading children's books for a long time without embarrassment. Decades ago I realized that many of these wonderful books hadn't even been written when I was at the "right" age for them, so why should I miss out on them? If I hadn't realized this, I would have missed out on Harry Potter, Paddington Bear, Narnia, and "His Dark Materials." And books by so many of my favorite authors, such as Diana Wynne Jones, Lloyd Alexander, Susan Cooper, Roald Dahl, Zilpha Keatley Snyder, and Eva Ibbotson.
After reading this book, I find myself hoping that others will be encouraged to dip into children's books and discover what they've been missing.
September 25, 2019
“If I had a serious brain injury I might well write a children’s book,” Martin Amis once said when asked if he’d ever thought of writing for younger readers. He added that writing for kids would force him to write “at a lower register” than the level at which he was capable of writing. Katherine Rundell duly notes Amis’s disdain for children’s literature as it is so much in keeping with people’s indulgent and mildly dismissive response to her when she tells them what she does for a living. There’s “a particular smile that some people give,” she says, “roughly the same smile I’d expect had I told them I make miniature bathroom furniture out of matchboxes, for the elves.”
However, as Rundell goes on to reflect in her little—literally 4” X 5”— book: “the human heart is not a linear train ride”. She says there’s a general sense among adults that we should always be progressing, but we actually don’t turn to books of increasing difficulty and complexity. That’s where children’s literature comes in. The best works of literature for the young, she intimates, aren’t just for them. “Children’s fiction necessitates distillation” rendering “in their purest, most archetypal forms hope, hunger, joy, fear.” Children don’t tolerate authorial pontificating, meandering, and self congratulation, so when authors, including Rundell herself, write for them, they use fewer words to put down the things they want children to know (arming them for life) . . . and adults to remember: “that there are and always will be great, sustaining truths to which we can return.”
I can’t argue with any of this, and while it was nice to see this and other ideas written down, I was still disappointed with this very slight book, which ultimately amounts to a Christmas stocking stuffer for the already converted—i.e., those who know children’s literature is not some lesser form of writing. I wished the book had provided more examples to flesh out the ways high quality children’s books can remind us (without being preachy or didactic) of enduring truths and the magic of being alive.
However, as Rundell goes on to reflect in her little—literally 4” X 5”— book: “the human heart is not a linear train ride”. She says there’s a general sense among adults that we should always be progressing, but we actually don’t turn to books of increasing difficulty and complexity. That’s where children’s literature comes in. The best works of literature for the young, she intimates, aren’t just for them. “Children’s fiction necessitates distillation” rendering “in their purest, most archetypal forms hope, hunger, joy, fear.” Children don’t tolerate authorial pontificating, meandering, and self congratulation, so when authors, including Rundell herself, write for them, they use fewer words to put down the things they want children to know (arming them for life) . . . and adults to remember: “that there are and always will be great, sustaining truths to which we can return.”
I can’t argue with any of this, and while it was nice to see this and other ideas written down, I was still disappointed with this very slight book, which ultimately amounts to a Christmas stocking stuffer for the already converted—i.e., those who know children’s literature is not some lesser form of writing. I wished the book had provided more examples to flesh out the ways high quality children’s books can remind us (without being preachy or didactic) of enduring truths and the magic of being alive.
November 13, 2022
This topic hits very close to home. So many times, I've been told that certain things weren't meant for me - when I was a kid, it was because I was a girl instead of a boy, nowadays it's because I'm supposedly an adult. What an insult!
"1 Corinthians 13: ‘Now that I have become a man, I have put away childish things."
Yet another example of the Bible and its writer(s) being full of shit. But this is precisely what most people think, isn't it?
How many times have I had to justify(!) myself (or so the people talking to me believed, but not to worry, they learned the error of their ways and pretty quickly) for consuming anything intended for children! Be it movies/shows, books, art types, ... you name it.
Thankfully, I'm always able to deadpan with a quote from one of the most iconic advertisements in German TV history: "What's good for children can't be bad for adults."
It's the nicest way of flipping idiots the bird.
Yes, I actually do quote that line - it's just disheartening HOW OFTEN I have to quote it. What is wrong with watching "children's movies"? Is anyone seriously saying they are "too dumb" for the "more sophisticated tastes" of an adult? *snorts*
Ever seen a Pixar movie? Any one of them can be enjoyed on different levels and what we enjoy / take away usually differes depending on our age. But there you go: there HAVE multiple layers. Why? Because good art always does.
And for those who say that Pixar is a bad example because most of their stuff isn't actually for kids (yes, I had someone use that idiotic argument so let's roll with it for a moment): if you watch one of the old Disney movies, which clearly were intended for children, you also get several layers and many different morals. Like I said: good art always uses multiple layers and messages and not just to sell to as many people as possible because art has always been about life and how we live it, how we perceive it and there is never just one way.
Funnily enough, most of the people who think it a good idea to make fun of people enjoying children's anything are the ones who would have benefitted from enjoying that stuff themselves! Call it an educational program in their cases.
What I mean is that children's stories in any art form are always trying to warn us of things that will happen to us in life (thus preparing us and showing us how we should react and why) and to thereby make the reader a good person. And boy, do we need those!
Another myth still persists: that adult stories are deeper, richer. I'm reading over 200 stories every year and I can tell you from experience that that is a load of pure bullshit.
Yes, there are some fantastic stories out there that are created in a way that one should be older before consuming them. But while they are indeed rich and deep, they aren't richER or deepER.
Katherine Rundell is an author and yes, mainly of children's books (or that is what she is most known for). And apparently she's been accosted by many people throughout her life, too, and she's had enough. *lol* If even the Guardian can imply that children's stories are somehow less, it's time to set the record straight. Which is exactly what she's doing here. Not in a dry way, but by nicely tackling the issue from all sides and revealing why you should indeed read children's books, regardless of your age.
One of the core messages is that children's fiction is not childish but "has childhood at its heart" and I couldn't agree more.
I'm not going to summarise all points the author has made in the 11 chapters of this "book" since this is only an essay after all. However, I do urge you to read it and take the message to heart. Not least because I pity the soul who has killed their inner child and can't enjoy the simple things in life that - by the way - make them resilient if nothing else (yes, I do see a correlation between children's toughness, their wild abandon, and their ability to see the extra in the ordinary).
"1 Corinthians 13: ‘Now that I have become a man, I have put away childish things."
Yet another example of the Bible and its writer(s) being full of shit. But this is precisely what most people think, isn't it?
How many times have I had to justify(!) myself (or so the people talking to me believed, but not to worry, they learned the error of their ways and pretty quickly) for consuming anything intended for children! Be it movies/shows, books, art types, ... you name it.
Thankfully, I'm always able to deadpan with a quote from one of the most iconic advertisements in German TV history: "What's good for children can't be bad for adults."
It's the nicest way of flipping idiots the bird.
Yes, I actually do quote that line - it's just disheartening HOW OFTEN I have to quote it. What is wrong with watching "children's movies"? Is anyone seriously saying they are "too dumb" for the "more sophisticated tastes" of an adult? *snorts*
Ever seen a Pixar movie? Any one of them can be enjoyed on different levels and what we enjoy / take away usually differes depending on our age. But there you go: there HAVE multiple layers. Why? Because good art always does.
And for those who say that Pixar is a bad example because most of their stuff isn't actually for kids (yes, I had someone use that idiotic argument so let's roll with it for a moment): if you watch one of the old Disney movies, which clearly were intended for children, you also get several layers and many different morals. Like I said: good art always uses multiple layers and messages and not just to sell to as many people as possible because art has always been about life and how we live it, how we perceive it and there is never just one way.
Funnily enough, most of the people who think it a good idea to make fun of people enjoying children's anything are the ones who would have benefitted from enjoying that stuff themselves! Call it an educational program in their cases.
What I mean is that children's stories in any art form are always trying to warn us of things that will happen to us in life (thus preparing us and showing us how we should react and why) and to thereby make the reader a good person. And boy, do we need those!
Another myth still persists: that adult stories are deeper, richer. I'm reading over 200 stories every year and I can tell you from experience that that is a load of pure bullshit.
Yes, there are some fantastic stories out there that are created in a way that one should be older before consuming them. But while they are indeed rich and deep, they aren't richER or deepER.
Katherine Rundell is an author and yes, mainly of children's books (or that is what she is most known for). And apparently she's been accosted by many people throughout her life, too, and she's had enough. *lol* If even the Guardian can imply that children's stories are somehow less, it's time to set the record straight. Which is exactly what she's doing here. Not in a dry way, but by nicely tackling the issue from all sides and revealing why you should indeed read children's books, regardless of your age.
One of the core messages is that children's fiction is not childish but "has childhood at its heart" and I couldn't agree more.
I'm not going to summarise all points the author has made in the 11 chapters of this "book" since this is only an essay after all. However, I do urge you to read it and take the message to heart. Not least because I pity the soul who has killed their inner child and can't enjoy the simple things in life that - by the way - make them resilient if nothing else (yes, I do see a correlation between children's toughness, their wild abandon, and their ability to see the extra in the ordinary).
November 2, 2020
3.5 Stars
I think the sentiments in this book are best summed up by this quote:
"Children's fiction does something else too: it offers to help us refind things we may not even know we have lost. Adult life is full of forgetting; I have forgotten most of the people I have ever met; I've forgotten most of the books I've read, even the ones that changed me forever; I've forgotten most of my epiphanies. And I've forgotten, at various time in my life, how to read: how to lay aside scepticism and fashion and trust myself to a book. At the risk of sounding like a mad optimist: children's fiction can reteach you how to read with an open heart. When you read children's books, you are given the space to read again as a child: to find your way back, back to the time when discoveries came daily and the world was colossal, before your imagination was trimmed and neatened, as if it were an optional extra"
Nuff said.
I think the sentiments in this book are best summed up by this quote:
"Children's fiction does something else too: it offers to help us refind things we may not even know we have lost. Adult life is full of forgetting; I have forgotten most of the people I have ever met; I've forgotten most of the books I've read, even the ones that changed me forever; I've forgotten most of my epiphanies. And I've forgotten, at various time in my life, how to read: how to lay aside scepticism and fashion and trust myself to a book. At the risk of sounding like a mad optimist: children's fiction can reteach you how to read with an open heart. When you read children's books, you are given the space to read again as a child: to find your way back, back to the time when discoveries came daily and the world was colossal, before your imagination was trimmed and neatened, as if it were an optional extra"
Nuff said.
December 20, 2020
A wonderful essay that celebrates the importance of children's literature in the lives of everyone no matter their age. Rundells covers a lot in this little piece - the origins of children's literature, its place in society now and the power it has to affect us even if we are no longer, officially, a child. Having read many books on the history and politics of children's literature, I felt that Rundell gave an excellent little introduction to the whole range of reading and will, I hope, inspire others to head off in search of its rich history and past.
August 8, 2019
A great 63-page essay on why adults should not be ashamed to read children’s books - something that I think a lot of people should read. I would have loved this to go into more detail than it did as I feel like so many points were rushed over and a lot of fantastic points were so close to being perfect but just missing by a fraction, and the whole point of why adults should read children’s books is, at times, buried beneath context that is also brushed over. Understandable in such a short text but I would have loved it if this was longer.
January 30, 2021
Children’s books say: the world is huge. They say: hope counts for something. They say: bravery will matter, wit will matter, empathy will matter, love will matter.
quick, clever, and lovely: this 63-page essay is smol but mighty in its advocacy for reading children’s books!
rundell writes clearly and with delicious precision; i highlighted many phrases that nourished my soul, and that underscored the imaginative and political potential within children’s stories.
April 19, 2023
Mierīgi bērnu grāmatas šajā esejā var aizstāt arī fantāzijas un fantastikas žanriem, un nozīme nemainās. Literatūras spēks!
January 3, 2023
The perfect essay to kick-off a new year in reading,
Why You Should Read Children's Books, Even Though You Are So Old and Wise
is a passionate argument against the snobbish devaluation of children's literature by those who believe that we all must outgrow it, as if books are meant merely to progress us towards a deathly seriousness. It reads as both a direct response to the way people respond to author telling them that she writes children's books for a living—with "roughly the same smile I’d expect had I told them I made miniature bathroom furniture out of matchboxes, for the elves"—as well as a pure thing of beauty that invites us to look at the abundant ways in which "kid lit" can rekindle our powers of wonder and imagination; a love letter to children's writing bound to resonate with everyone who has felt nourished by it.
Here, Rundell—who has to her credit several highly inventive children's books such as Rooftoppers and The Good Thieves , as well as a book on the beauty and strangeness of the natural world and, most recently, a Baillie Gifford Non-fiction prizewinning biography of the poet John Donne—expresses how children's books do not entail writing "at a lower register," as Martin Amis once put it, but in fact "necessitates distillation: at its best, it renders in their purest, most archetypal forms hope, hunger, joy, fear" with no need for the egotism and pontification that many 'adult' novelists find it impossible to do without. There is an art to writing for children, which, as W H Auden once remarked, is never just for children, and the author expounds on this with insights from her own process:
Here, Rundell—who has to her credit several highly inventive children's books such as Rooftoppers and The Good Thieves , as well as a book on the beauty and strangeness of the natural world and, most recently, a Baillie Gifford Non-fiction prizewinning biography of the poet John Donne—expresses how children's books do not entail writing "at a lower register," as Martin Amis once put it, but in fact "necessitates distillation: at its best, it renders in their purest, most archetypal forms hope, hunger, joy, fear" with no need for the egotism and pontification that many 'adult' novelists find it impossible to do without. There is an art to writing for children, which, as W H Auden once remarked, is never just for children, and the author expounds on this with insights from her own process:
"When I write, I write for two people: myself, age twelve, and myself, now, and the book has to satisfy two distinct but connected appetites. My twelve-year-old self wanted autonomy, peril, justice, food, and above all a kind of density of atmosphere into which I could step and be engulfed. My adult self wants all those things, and also: acknowledgements of fear, love, failure; of the rat that lives within the human heart."Proceeding to draw a cogent history of the genre and its development, she points that there is also something instructive in reading these emboldening—and often, subversive, whether fantastically or otherwise— texts “specifically written to be read by a section of society without political or economic power.” Indeed, children's literature is political, as is all other literature, and it is through an assertion of this that Why You Should Read Children's Books... finally brings us back to the hope-making and alchemy that lies at the heart of our desire to read. Fittingly, Rundell—who first discovered books in a small children's library in Harare, Zimbabwe—closes her brilliantly worded and justly argued address to the old and wise with a portion about the politics of access:
"Children's books are not a hiding place, they are a seeking place"Yes, they are. Yes they are!
and,
"If hope is a thing with feathers, then libraries are wings."
March 29, 2020
Most people, Rundell thinks, perceive children’s literature as a first stage in their evolution as a reader: it is to be gradually but firmly replaced with adult literature, and never revisited. But of course, as this standalone essay’s terrific title tells you, she believes such a decision would be shortsighted because children’s books have come a long way from the didactic texts they were in the 15th to 18th centuries and are now as magical, subversive and hopeful as anything marketed to adults. Fairy tales and myths, far from being trivial, are central to our literature and have to be constantly reinterpreted. Rundell also makes a plea for libraries, remembering how important the children’s section of the Mount Pleasant, Harare, Zimbabwe public library was to her when she was growing up.
Favorite lines:
“children’s fiction necessitates distillation: at its best, it renders in their purest, most archetypal forms hope, hunger, joy, fear. Think of children’s books as literary vodka.”
“it’s to children’s fiction that you turn if you want to feel awe and hunger and longing for justice: to make the old warhorse heart stamp again in its stall.”
(the last lines) “Children’s novels, to me, spoke, and still speak, of hope. They say: look this is what bravery looks like. This is what generosity looks like. They tell me, through the medium of wizards and lions and talking spiders, that this world we live in is a world of people who tell jokes and work and endure. Children’s books say: the world is huge. They say: hope counts for something. They say: bravery will matter, wit will matter, empathy will matter, love will matter. These things may or may not be true. I do not know. I hope they are. I think it is urgently necessary to hear them and to speak them.”
Favorite lines:
“children’s fiction necessitates distillation: at its best, it renders in their purest, most archetypal forms hope, hunger, joy, fear. Think of children’s books as literary vodka.”
“it’s to children’s fiction that you turn if you want to feel awe and hunger and longing for justice: to make the old warhorse heart stamp again in its stall.”
(the last lines) “Children’s novels, to me, spoke, and still speak, of hope. They say: look this is what bravery looks like. This is what generosity looks like. They tell me, through the medium of wizards and lions and talking spiders, that this world we live in is a world of people who tell jokes and work and endure. Children’s books say: the world is huge. They say: hope counts for something. They say: bravery will matter, wit will matter, empathy will matter, love will matter. These things may or may not be true. I do not know. I hope they are. I think it is urgently necessary to hear them and to speak them.”
September 7, 2019
4.5*
I already love reading children’s book, and even chose a module on this topic when I studied for my English lit degree, so why would I try this essay? Well, I wanted to see what arguments the author came up with, and although this is a very short read, I did enjoy it.
Rundell puts forward lots of great points but due to the format doesn’t dwell as much as I would have liked on them. Mind you, this is probably just enough to tempt readers to widen their horizons - if they’re willing, that is. Her point on libraries did echo the ones Gaiman forwarded in Art Matters. Both touch on the main reason I come back: the sense of wonder. I still love feeling wonder, and plenty of adults do too, as can be seen by the popularity of Harry Potter and His Dark Materials.
Part of the problem is this weird genre hierarchy, supposedly based on quality. It is something that annoys me enormously, and not just because I’m omnivorous in my reading. If you like reading one kind of stories, fine; if you like a variety, fine. There is no need to deprecate other genres, or people’s tastes. I live in hope. In the meantime, I’m going to check Rundell’s novels :0)
I already love reading children’s book, and even chose a module on this topic when I studied for my English lit degree, so why would I try this essay? Well, I wanted to see what arguments the author came up with, and although this is a very short read, I did enjoy it.
Rundell puts forward lots of great points but due to the format doesn’t dwell as much as I would have liked on them. Mind you, this is probably just enough to tempt readers to widen their horizons - if they’re willing, that is. Her point on libraries did echo the ones Gaiman forwarded in Art Matters. Both touch on the main reason I come back: the sense of wonder. I still love feeling wonder, and plenty of adults do too, as can be seen by the popularity of Harry Potter and His Dark Materials.
Part of the problem is this weird genre hierarchy, supposedly based on quality. It is something that annoys me enormously, and not just because I’m omnivorous in my reading. If you like reading one kind of stories, fine; if you like a variety, fine. There is no need to deprecate other genres, or people’s tastes. I live in hope. In the meantime, I’m going to check Rundell’s novels :0)
October 23, 2020
As someone who loves reading children's books, (and is relatively older, but not wise enough) I found this essay to be delightful. The author makes some really valid points, but I wished it was longer and the idea explored with more depth.
March 19, 2023
It seems like the book just started and it got over too soon.
When I see the topic and pick up the book for it, I feel it should provide more than just a brief history on how it started for children’s books. It should be able to give the various perspectives on how and why diverse books for young readers help shape our understanding of the younger generation as well as how it impacts us adults, the authors and the readers in general.
Well, didn’t get much out of the book.
When I see the topic and pick up the book for it, I feel it should provide more than just a brief history on how it started for children’s books. It should be able to give the various perspectives on how and why diverse books for young readers help shape our understanding of the younger generation as well as how it impacts us adults, the authors and the readers in general.
Well, didn’t get much out of the book.
June 7, 2023
"Vispārpieņemtais priekšstats par lasītāja progresu rada daudz sarežģījumu, un viens no tiem ir šāds: ja virzīsimies uz savu "pieaugšanu", izvēloties aizvien sarežģītāka satura grāmatas, izrādīsies, ka, guļot uz nāves gultas, iepriecinājumu varēs dāvāt tikai Džoisa "Finegana vāķis"un franču domātāja Žaka Deridā kopotie raksti."
Zināt, kāpēc es lasu bērnu grāmatas? Reizēm, bet lasu. Es mīlu savu iekšējo bērnu.
"Bērnu grāmatu pasaule saka: pasaule ir milzīga. Tās atgādina: cerībai ir jēga. Tās mudina: drosmei būs nozīme, asprātībai būs nozīme, līdzjūtībai būs nozīme, mīlestībai būs jēga."
Zināt, kāpēc es lasu bērnu grāmatas? Reizēm, bet lasu. Es mīlu savu iekšējo bērnu.
"Bērnu grāmatu pasaule saka: pasaule ir milzīga. Tās atgādina: cerībai ir jēga. Tās mudina: drosmei būs nozīme, asprātībai būs nozīme, līdzjūtībai būs nozīme, mīlestībai būs jēga."
June 14, 2019
A distilled tonic of a book that you can read in just a couple of hours. Filled with peps of inspiration about fairytales, nursery food, book memories and how we can recapture all those things in the books we write and read for children.
If you're a librarian, teacher, or children's book reader, or writer, it will inspire you to read more of all the wonderful children's books out there. To think about how and why they were written, and remember the child you were when you first read them.
If you're a librarian, teacher, or children's book reader, or writer, it will inspire you to read more of all the wonderful children's books out there. To think about how and why they were written, and remember the child you were when you first read them.
June 13, 2024
p.30 "Wij hadden een groot gezin en lezen bood privacy van het rauwe lichtelijk geschifte panopticum wat het samenleven met drie broers en zussen inhoudt. Ik kon naast ze in de auto zitten, maar eigenlijk was dat de enige tijd dat niemand in de hele wereld wist waar ik was. Ik kroop met de Hobbits door donkere tunnels, stond voor aanstormende treinen met een rode vlag, afgescheurd van een petticoat te zwaaien: in je eentje is een oneindige ruimte binnenstappen waar niemand je kan volgen."
p.50 "Hier werd het idee dat kinderen lief, zacht of noodzakelijkerwijs dwazer of aardiger waren dan andere mensensoorten overboord gezet, samen met het idee dat alle logica volwassen logica moest zijn. Als kind maakte ik me geen enkele illusie dat kinderen lief waren: door mijn eigen onstuimige hart wist ik dat kinderen dikwijls vals, grof en bot waren."
p.55 "Kinderboeken in huis kunnen gevaarlijke dingen in zich bergen. Een zwaard, verstopt in een paraplu"
p.57 "Fictie voor kinderen doet ook nog iets anders: het geeft ons de kans om dingen terug te vinden waarvan we misschien niet eens weten dat we ze kwijt zijn. Het volwassen leven zit vol vergeten; de meeste mensen die ik heb ontmoet ben ik vergeten ; de meeste boeken die ik gelezen heb ben ik vergeten, zelfs de boeken die me voorgoed hebben veranderd; ik ben mijn meeste momenten van plotseling inzicht vergeten. En verschillende keren in mijn leven ben ik vergeten hoe ik moest lezen: hoe ik mijn scepsis en gewoonten opzij moest zetten en me aan een boek moest overleveren"
p.61 "Op sommige momenten doen kinderboeken voor mij, wat al het andere niet lukt (...) Kinderromans spreken en spraken nog steeds over hoop. Ze zeggen: kijk, zo ziet dapperheid eruit. Zo ziet ruimhartigheid eruit. Via het medium van tovenaars en leeuwen en pratende spinnen, vertellen ze dat deze wereld waarin we leven een wereld van mensen die grapjes maken en werken en zich handhaven. Kinderboeken zeggen: de wereld is kolossaal. Ze zeggen: hoop is belangrijk. Ze zeggen: dapperheid doet ertoe, vernuft doet ertoe, empathie doet ertoe, liefde doet ertoe.
p.50 "Hier werd het idee dat kinderen lief, zacht of noodzakelijkerwijs dwazer of aardiger waren dan andere mensensoorten overboord gezet, samen met het idee dat alle logica volwassen logica moest zijn. Als kind maakte ik me geen enkele illusie dat kinderen lief waren: door mijn eigen onstuimige hart wist ik dat kinderen dikwijls vals, grof en bot waren."
p.55 "Kinderboeken in huis kunnen gevaarlijke dingen in zich bergen. Een zwaard, verstopt in een paraplu"
p.57 "Fictie voor kinderen doet ook nog iets anders: het geeft ons de kans om dingen terug te vinden waarvan we misschien niet eens weten dat we ze kwijt zijn. Het volwassen leven zit vol vergeten; de meeste mensen die ik heb ontmoet ben ik vergeten ; de meeste boeken die ik gelezen heb ben ik vergeten, zelfs de boeken die me voorgoed hebben veranderd; ik ben mijn meeste momenten van plotseling inzicht vergeten. En verschillende keren in mijn leven ben ik vergeten hoe ik moest lezen: hoe ik mijn scepsis en gewoonten opzij moest zetten en me aan een boek moest overleveren"
p.61 "Op sommige momenten doen kinderboeken voor mij, wat al het andere niet lukt (...) Kinderromans spreken en spraken nog steeds over hoop. Ze zeggen: kijk, zo ziet dapperheid eruit. Zo ziet ruimhartigheid eruit. Via het medium van tovenaars en leeuwen en pratende spinnen, vertellen ze dat deze wereld waarin we leven een wereld van mensen die grapjes maken en werken en zich handhaven. Kinderboeken zeggen: de wereld is kolossaal. Ze zeggen: hoop is belangrijk. Ze zeggen: dapperheid doet ertoe, vernuft doet ertoe, empathie doet ertoe, liefde doet ertoe.
June 21, 2023
Daiļliteratūra bērniem veic vienu svarīgu uzdevumu - tā palīdz no jauna atrast lietas, ko pat neapzināmies pazaudējuši.
Pieaugušo dzīve ir pilna aizmirstības!
Pieaugušo dzīve ir pilna aizmirstības!
November 16, 2022
So defy those who would tell you to be serious, to calculate the profit of your imagination; those who would limit joy in the name of propriety. Cut shame off at the knees. Ignore those who would call it mindless escapism: it’s not escapism: it is findism. Children’s books are not a hiding place, they are a seeking place. Plunge yourself soul-forward into a children’s book: see if you do not find in them an unexpected alchemy; if they will not un-dig in you something half hidden and half forgotten. Read a children’s book to remember what it was to long for impossible and perhaps-not-impossible things. Go to children’s fiction to see the world with double eyes: your own, and those of your childhood self. Refuse unflinchingly to be embarrassed: and in exchange you get the second star to the right, and straight on till morning.
July 19, 2019
Favourite quote “Children’s books are not a hiding place, they are a seeking place.”
April 12, 2023
..šī eseja bija neticami skaista un lika aizdomāties, un vēl – tā nāca tieši laikā, kad kaut ko tādu gribējs izlasīt. man tajā patika pilnīgi viss. tāpat kā bērnu grāmatas. :)
March 19, 2024
What a disappointment. When my friend loaned me this book I was quite excited as I looked forward to reading a good debate on the subject, as I am a a regular reader of children's books and junior fiction.
Unfortunately for me Katherine Rundell has pitched her argument far too high, using highfalutin language and examples that do not resonate with this reader, and certainly if the book was read by a younger reader who perhaps wondered 'Why do older people read children's books?', it would miss an opportunity to convince because the narrative takes something of a high moral ground rather than a down to earth approach. I imagine that it may not be understandable to the younger reader, indeed as it was not at times to me.
Okay, the author does mention Wonderland and Neverland, Roald Dahl and Mary Poppins, but not necessarily in a way that I could empathise with. For example there is a quote used from Angela Carter who said, 'I am all for putting new wine in old bottles, especially if the pressure of the new wine makes the old bottles explode.' And another example is 'So, it's to children's fiction that you turn if you want to feel awe and hunger and longing for justice: to make the old warhorse stamp again in the stall.' Yes and ...?
Perhaps I am too simplistic and not able to take such statements in properly but I expected to see discussions relating to, say, Stevenson's 'Treasure Island' and books such as that plus mention of authors like Frank Richards, Angela Brazil, Beatrix Potter, Henty, Enid Blyton, Kate Greenaway and the like. Such references were sadly lacking and much of what the author wrote either went straight over my head or left me puzzled.
As for the political spin on the subject, that, too, left me cold when related to reading children's books. It is all well and good to use an Edmund Burke quotation from 1790 but I question whether it is too deep for the subject under review. And while I can empathise with such as 'In 2016 my understanding of the world I lived in was upturned by Brexit, Trump, a sweep across Europe towards nationalisation and insularity, terrorist attacks', the stated antidote, however, 'reading through the prism of children's fiction' was perhaps less understandable.
On the plus side in a section headed 'And where to find them [the children's books]', there is mention of libraries and how 'since the turn of the decade £300 million has been slashed from library budgets', something quite true and horrible to consider, and this is followed by an analogy that I particularly liked, 'The library remains one of the few places in the world where you don't have to buy anything, know anyone, or believe anything to enter in.'
But at the end of the day, I know why I enjoy reading children's books, it is for the escapism, for the memories of childhood they invoke, for the re-living of a bygone age and for the enjoyment and the pleasure they give me. No such feelings emerge from this book, at least not in a language that I can understandably relate to the subject.
Is the book too academic? I shall not address that question directly but it leaves me feeling that I am obviously far too simple a soul ... but one who is quite happy to continue with my reading habits that include regular readings of junior books.
Unfortunately for me Katherine Rundell has pitched her argument far too high, using highfalutin language and examples that do not resonate with this reader, and certainly if the book was read by a younger reader who perhaps wondered 'Why do older people read children's books?', it would miss an opportunity to convince because the narrative takes something of a high moral ground rather than a down to earth approach. I imagine that it may not be understandable to the younger reader, indeed as it was not at times to me.
Okay, the author does mention Wonderland and Neverland, Roald Dahl and Mary Poppins, but not necessarily in a way that I could empathise with. For example there is a quote used from Angela Carter who said, 'I am all for putting new wine in old bottles, especially if the pressure of the new wine makes the old bottles explode.' And another example is 'So, it's to children's fiction that you turn if you want to feel awe and hunger and longing for justice: to make the old warhorse stamp again in the stall.' Yes and ...?
Perhaps I am too simplistic and not able to take such statements in properly but I expected to see discussions relating to, say, Stevenson's 'Treasure Island' and books such as that plus mention of authors like Frank Richards, Angela Brazil, Beatrix Potter, Henty, Enid Blyton, Kate Greenaway and the like. Such references were sadly lacking and much of what the author wrote either went straight over my head or left me puzzled.
As for the political spin on the subject, that, too, left me cold when related to reading children's books. It is all well and good to use an Edmund Burke quotation from 1790 but I question whether it is too deep for the subject under review. And while I can empathise with such as 'In 2016 my understanding of the world I lived in was upturned by Brexit, Trump, a sweep across Europe towards nationalisation and insularity, terrorist attacks', the stated antidote, however, 'reading through the prism of children's fiction' was perhaps less understandable.
On the plus side in a section headed 'And where to find them [the children's books]', there is mention of libraries and how 'since the turn of the decade £300 million has been slashed from library budgets', something quite true and horrible to consider, and this is followed by an analogy that I particularly liked, 'The library remains one of the few places in the world where you don't have to buy anything, know anyone, or believe anything to enter in.'
But at the end of the day, I know why I enjoy reading children's books, it is for the escapism, for the memories of childhood they invoke, for the re-living of a bygone age and for the enjoyment and the pleasure they give me. No such feelings emerge from this book, at least not in a language that I can understandably relate to the subject.
Is the book too academic? I shall not address that question directly but it leaves me feeling that I am obviously far too simple a soul ... but one who is quite happy to continue with my reading habits that include regular readings of junior books.
September 14, 2019
Why You Should Read Children's Books, Even Though You Are So Old and Wise
is a book that every grown-up needs to read. At about 60 pages, it's more of an essay than a book - but don't be fooled by its brevity; in this short space, Katherine Rundell expertly guides the reader through the many facets of children's literature - its origins in the early 18th century, the Golden Age of children's literature responsible for producing classics like The Chronicles of Narnia, Peter Pan and The Jungle Book (where didacticism was put aside in favour of adventure, friendship and imagination), through to the radical, politically charged modern masterpieces being published today. As a children's bookseller with a degree in children's literature, Rundell's argument that children's books are for adults as much as children is one I endorse entirely. Not a day goes by where I'm not trying to convince customers to get lost in the magic of children's books - whether it's escaping to the fantastical worlds of Jessica Townsend's Nevermoor and Abi Elphinstone's Erkenwald, or delving into more hard-hitting subjects like the refugee crisis and racial inequality in The Boy At the Back of the Class and The Hate U Give.
There are wonders to be found within the pages of children's books and I hope that this book might help you seen them in a new light. Though, a piece of cautionary advice: once you dive into the rabbit-hole of children's literature it's rather tricky to get back out...
There are wonders to be found within the pages of children's books and I hope that this book might help you seen them in a new light. Though, a piece of cautionary advice: once you dive into the rabbit-hole of children's literature it's rather tricky to get back out...
January 31, 2020
When I write, I write for two people: myself, age twelve, and myself, now, and the book has to satisfy two distinct but connected appetites. My twelve-year-old self wanted autonomy, peril, justice, food, and above all a kind of density of atmosphere into which I could step and be engulfed. My adult self wants all those things, and also: acknowledgements of fear, love, failure; of the rat that lives within the human heart.
Rundell writes so beautifully, and this is perhaps my favourite of the ‘5 star’ passages in this book. The problem is that this book reads a bit more like a promising outline than a conclusive thesis. I know that its small size (as big as a hand) suggests brevity, but it skips around the topic in a somewhat disjointed way - equal parts Rundell’s reading development and then unrelated offshoots like the topic of ‘Politics’ in children’s literature. It feels undeveloped, and never adds up to a satisfying sum of its sometimes brilliant parts.
As an aside: I’m already convinced that children’s literature (the best of it, anyway) is good for all ages. In other words, she is just ‘preaching to the choir’ as far as I’m concerned. I do, wonder, though, if this slight book is enough to convince skeptics and naysayers. (Martin Amis, for instance)
December 19, 2020
Osuruk esprileri, güzel periler ve prenseslerin değil, çocuk kitaplarının önemi hakkında kısa bir metin. Bu okumaların önemini bildiğim için, doğru yaptığım bir şeyi görmek gibiydi bu kitabı okumak. Yazar hem güzel bir özet hem de iyi örnekler vermiş. Tavsiye ederim.
April 19, 2023
...Children's fiction necessitates distillation: at its best, it renders in their purest, most archetypal forms hope, hunger, joy, fear.
This book was a manifesto on why children's books are for everyone. I loved Rundell's critique of Martin Amis's critique of children's literature. She's correct. By demeaning it, he totally missed the essence of children's literature.
So it's to children's fiction that you turn if you want to feel awe and hunger and longing for justice...
This book was was simple but it packed a punch. I'd recommend it to any reader but especially those who are jaded and world weary and to those who think children's literature holds nothing of value for adult readers.
I will leave you with a quote from C.S. Lewis:
"A children's story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children's story in the slightest."
This book was a manifesto on why children's books are for everyone. I loved Rundell's critique of Martin Amis's critique of children's literature. She's correct. By demeaning it, he totally missed the essence of children's literature.
So it's to children's fiction that you turn if you want to feel awe and hunger and longing for justice...
This book was was simple but it packed a punch. I'd recommend it to any reader but especially those who are jaded and world weary and to those who think children's literature holds nothing of value for adult readers.
I will leave you with a quote from C.S. Lewis:
"A children's story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children's story in the slightest."
Read
October 6, 2019An essay - or, rather, a love letter - to childrens books and writing for children. It made me very proud to be an author for teenagers.
Want to read
June 7, 2020I hope some of yall adults can read this book and learn to stop rating ya books low bc they were too childish or not dark enough...
August 1, 2019
This insightful and beautifully written essay fits into a slim 63-page hardback but contains as many worthy gems as many a longer study. In nearly a dozen sections Katherine Rundell, herself a children's author, makes a powerful case for juvenile fiction not being inferior to adult fiction but worthy in its own right; and, more than that, it can offer what much adult fiction can't or won't.
The author tries to put her finger on what those qualities are and, in my opinion, pretty much succeeds. All this review will aim to do is to give a flavour of the main points she enumerates.
First she emphasises that children's fiction is "not exclusively for children" as anybody who conscientiously reads this literature without being the target audience can confirm. Yet there are those so wedded to a false concept of 'progress' that they will think that kids lit is of less worth than adult fiction. As the author says, there is a place for fart jokes, dinosaur facts and diaphonous fairies, but there is more to this genre than these kinds of topics.
Four sections provide an overview of the history of children's fiction down to today and celebrate the immersiveness of childhood reading and the genre's intrinsic values: 'wild hungers' and, in Angela Carter's marvellous phrase, 'heroic optimism'. This last was in reference to the message that many fairytales (and fiction using fairytale tropes) provide what Rundell calls "the miracle of hope". She correctly points out that fairytales "were never just for children" and that by providing a message of hope they speak to all ages, especially during times when it's all too easy to despair from a sense of powerlessness.
Shen then has a section on politics -- not party politics but this very issue of a balance of power. Children's fiction, she declares, was and is "specifically written to be read by a section of society without political or economic power," and its messages, often more hidden than explicit, can be mildly subversive if not dangerous. (In a good way, of course.) She later has strong words to say about a lack of diversity in UK publications for young readers, pointing out that though a little over 31% of school children are from minority ethnic origins, just 4% of books issued in a recent year featured BAME characters.
Her next focus is on imagination in kids' books, for reading them "can teach us not just what we have forgotten but what we have forgotten we have forgotten." More than that, book say something essential: they say "hope counts for something." The miracle of hope fairytales provide is present in good literature, a counterblast to all that is ugly in life. Nil desperandum is what they whisper, and sometimes even shout.
And the place to find this hope, distilled into compact form? The library of course, the place so despised by law makers that they deprive it of funds, thus depriving young minds of hope.
Rundell finishes off her impassioned plea with a final powerful truth:
Say it loud, then: Children's books are not a hiding place, they are a seeking place. Anyone who tells you otherwise is a scoundrel.
The author tries to put her finger on what those qualities are and, in my opinion, pretty much succeeds. All this review will aim to do is to give a flavour of the main points she enumerates.
First she emphasises that children's fiction is "not exclusively for children" as anybody who conscientiously reads this literature without being the target audience can confirm. Yet there are those so wedded to a false concept of 'progress' that they will think that kids lit is of less worth than adult fiction. As the author says, there is a place for fart jokes, dinosaur facts and diaphonous fairies, but there is more to this genre than these kinds of topics.
Four sections provide an overview of the history of children's fiction down to today and celebrate the immersiveness of childhood reading and the genre's intrinsic values: 'wild hungers' and, in Angela Carter's marvellous phrase, 'heroic optimism'. This last was in reference to the message that many fairytales (and fiction using fairytale tropes) provide what Rundell calls "the miracle of hope". She correctly points out that fairytales "were never just for children" and that by providing a message of hope they speak to all ages, especially during times when it's all too easy to despair from a sense of powerlessness.
Shen then has a section on politics -- not party politics but this very issue of a balance of power. Children's fiction, she declares, was and is "specifically written to be read by a section of society without political or economic power," and its messages, often more hidden than explicit, can be mildly subversive if not dangerous. (In a good way, of course.) She later has strong words to say about a lack of diversity in UK publications for young readers, pointing out that though a little over 31% of school children are from minority ethnic origins, just 4% of books issued in a recent year featured BAME characters.
Her next focus is on imagination in kids' books, for reading them "can teach us not just what we have forgotten but what we have forgotten we have forgotten." More than that, book say something essential: they say "hope counts for something." The miracle of hope fairytales provide is present in good literature, a counterblast to all that is ugly in life. Nil desperandum is what they whisper, and sometimes even shout.
And the place to find this hope, distilled into compact form? The library of course, the place so despised by law makers that they deprive it of funds, thus depriving young minds of hope.
Rundell finishes off her impassioned plea with a final powerful truth:
So defy those who would tell you to be serious, to calculate the profit of your imagination... Ignore those who would call it mindless escapism: it's not escapism: it is findism.
Say it loud, then: Children's books are not a hiding place, they are a seeking place. Anyone who tells you otherwise is a scoundrel.
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