Children’s Literature

I have always been fascinated by children’s fantasy literature. Just recently I finished reading Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. Also this year I read Peter Pan and I am currently reading aloud to my children Hans Christian Anderson’s fairy tales. My collection of Oz books is extensive, yet not complete. And who can’t love stepping into Narnia for the afternoon?

I could go on. But I wanted to share a quote by G.K. Chesterton taken from his essay “The Dragon’s Grandmother” in his book Tremendous Trifles about the topic of children’s fantasy literature. I would like to read that book; alas I do not own it. I found this as only part of an article I read.

“Can you not see that fairy tales in their essence are quite solid and straightforward; but this everlasting fiction about modern life is in its nature essentially incredible? Folk-lore means that the soul is sane, but that the universe is wild and full of marvels. Realism means that the world is dull and full of routine, but that the soul is sick and screaming. The problem of the fairy tale is – what will a healthy man do with a fantastic world? The problem of the modern novel is – what will a madman do with a dull world? In the fairy tales the cosmos goes mad; but the hero does not go mad. In the modern novels the hero is mad before the book begins, and suffers from the harsh steadiness and cruel sanity of the cosmos.”