Early children’s novels, some of which have become classics beyond the genre, attempt to embrace the perspective of the child – or, at least, an idealized child-like perspective that adult authors in the Victorian era sought to cultivate. It is the long Victorian period, into the early twentieth century—often referred to as a “golden age” of the genre itself—that influences the shape of western children’s fiction in its nascent stages; classics such as Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865), Peter Pan (1904 play; 1911 novel), and many others are products of the imperial age. Even American classics, like Little Women (1868) and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900), reflect the idealized values of that time. In this way, one might say that the Victorian era “invented” children’s fiction, or, at least, shaped it substantially and gave it characteristics we recognize today as definitive of the larger genre.
Such characteristics of children’s novels in particular include, according to literary scholar Perry Nodelman: simplicity, ease of reading, “didactic in intention, and clearly positive in their outlook on life,” a positivity which frequently manifests in a happy ending and/or an overall optimistic tone (1). While early classics of the 1800s may no longer seem like simple, easy reading to modern audiences, due to changes in common vocabulary and other factors, the simplicity of a children’s novel can still be seen in the tendency toward centralized plots and direct characterization that dominates the genre. Children’s books tend to tell one central story from a single perspective, just as Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland follows its protagonist’s encounters in a strange new world through the eyes of Alice herself, or Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women tackles the era of the Civil War by telling the story of a single family, from the viewpoint of one daughter, Jo March. Similarly, the conflict of a children’s novel tends to be readily resolved within the context of a single book—or, has become more common in recent years, a single trilogy or series—and while not every single ending in children’s literature in the modern era can be strictly characterized as “happy,” this tendency toward positive resolution may influence the overall optimistic sensibility noted by scholars.
Didacticism—the intent, in short, for the story to teach a lesson to its reader—has changed in sensibility since that golden age of the nineteenth century, but still maintains a presence in children’s novels. Typical of a golden age children’s novel, Little Women actively encourages its readers to follow the principles articulated in John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress (1678), an allegorical Christian text directly referenced in the novel and from which many of the familial lessons learned by the characters are drawn. At the turn of the century, Dorothy in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz learns to value her home and the people she loves through the discomfort of the unfamiliar she encounters in the unknown land of Oz, a common lesson in classic children’s literature, which often engages with issues of restlessness, otherness, responsibility, and other concepts considered essential to “growing up” at the time. In the modern era, middle grade novels such as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (1997) utilize a moral standard contemporary to the age, encouraging children toward independent thought, loyalty in friendship, and rejection of bullying or other unfair treatment, rather than a specific religious guideline, but the intention of moral guidance—the tradition of didacticism in this literary form—remains the same.
Consistent characteristics, however, do not mean that children’s novels are incapable of complexity. Often, the very simplicity of the story allows for a multiplicity of interpretations and a complexity of meaning that encourages a depth of scholarship and the pleasures of rereading through many generations. Dorothy’s adventures in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, for example, might be seen as a simple quest narrative in which a farm girl from Kansas is magically transported to another land and learns to love her home, or, as some scholars have posited, it can just as easily be read as an anti-exploitation narrative in which a young rebel—Dorothy—saves a population from the hands of a despotic leader—the Wicked Witch of the West—with the help of a few key locals, or even, as Henry Littlefield posited in 1964, an allegory of American populism encoding the 1890s Gold Standard debate into its details (Ritter 172; Littlefield 49). Just like all other forms of literature, children’s novels reflect the cultural and political sensibilities of their eras, often encoding complex concepts in simple plots and direct prose.
Primary Readings:
Alcott, Louisa May. Little Women.
Barrie, J.M. Peter and Wendy.
Baum, L. Frank. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
Carroll, Lewis. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
Rowling, J.K. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.
Secondary References:
Littlefield, Henry M. “The Wizard of Oz: Parable on Populism.” American Quarterly, Vol. 16, No. 1, 1964), pp. 47-58. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2710826
Nodelman, Perry. “Pleasure and Genre: Speculations on the Characteristics of Children’s Fiction.” Children’s Literature, vol. 28, 2000, pp. 1-14. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/chl.0.0563
Ritter, Gretchen. “Silver Slippers and a Golden Cap: L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Historical Memory in American Politics.” Journal of American Studies, vol. 31, no. 2, 1997, pp. 171–202.
