The Golden Age of Children's Literature

For hundreds of years human culture has been writing stories, now the question is what drives them to write that story? Is it because they want to capture that perfect moment? Is it because they want to teach a lesson? Is it because they love doing so? Is it to entertain, explain, or scare? To me, all of these are reasons why people write stories. But what is the root of all this? Where does it come from?

The Golden Age of Children’s Literature started from 1860 with the book called The Water Babies by Charles Kinsley and up until the first World War, A. A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh. It was a period where there was this really excellent blossoming of Children’s Books,and it was during the Edwardian Era and the Victorian Era. The children’s books gave liberation. The books were not meant for education or instruction but merely for entertainment. That period established the way of talking to children in a very friendly way which has been adopted in the 20^th century. Books like Winnie the Pooh, Peter Pan, and Wind in the Willows all survived. These books front problems which children’s books didn’t before. All of this come together in this period of change. When the world was changing, when the politics was changing and children’s book responded to it.

Alright, I want to take a moment and think of that 1 person who matters the most to everyone in your family. Could be one of your sibling, or you yourself. Just one…okay go. This is going to be really disappointing but I want you to imagine one day that person just disappears from your life and never comes back or even worse dies. J.M Barrie, the author of Peter Pan although he was born into a happy family, the sudden death of his most gifted brother David destroyed his family. He was born during the Victorian Era and lived through the Edwardian Era and his personal tragedy gave him the idea of boyhood always in his mind. When his mother went into a shock he had to take the role of his brother to comfort his mother in her distress. By becoming a living version of David, Jamie’s relation with his mother strengthened. Nonetheless, he failed to grow up because he didn’t have an identity for himself. In the later years when he used to take his dog for a walk he came across the Davies family because their children used to be out in the park, playing with their nanny. He soon became hooked with the Davies family, visited them often and became they eventually became very good friends. They had four boys and a girl. The four boys in the family reminded him of his own boyhood and considered them his living versions of his ideal of boyhood. Peter Pan is a wish fulfillment story of triumph of youth over age. Barrie uses his story to escape from reality and form his life into a living story. Peter Pan enters into the lives of the Darling family and teaches them to fly and off they went to Neverland. After their adventure in Neverland, Peter pan can’t join the Darling family when they are reunited, and he remains the outsider much like Barrie himself as the outsider in the Davies Family later in the years.

Similar to J.M. Barrie, Kenneth Graham, the author of The Wind in the Willows had a depressing past experience. He was born in the mid Victorian Era and never really let go of the idea of childhood just like J.M. Barrie. His family although initially was a happy family, it fell apart when his mother died. Graham’s father not able to deal with his wife’s death, sent Graham and his siblings to his maternal grandmother and left them for another country. His early desertion highly impacted him and due to that his book focuses on loss of home and the restoration of it. The Rat, the Mole, and the Toad are all driven by their desire to find or rediscover their homes and not once does he mention parents in his book. The setting of the story is in a forest Graham used nature as an escape from his deserted life and also as a possibility to fill him spiritually.

If classic is marked by its ability to remain relevant for each generation – to be reinvented, as if by magic, at the same time as seeming reassuringly unchanged – then Mary Poppins must be gloriously a successful creation; or, as P.L.Travers herself put it, 'practically perfect in every way'. P. L. Travers was born in Queensland, Australia. Her father Travers Goff worked in the Australian Joint Stock Bank and later got demoted as a bank clerk. In January 1907 he feared he was about to be demoted again; he became ill with a high fever, and died several days later. His daughter Lyndon, P.L Travers was seven, the oldest of three little girls. Some time afterwards her mother, ran out of the house during a thunderstorm, crying that she was going to drown herself in a nearby river. Lyndon that night, wrapped a quilt around herself and her two younger sisters, and told them the story of a magical white horse that could fly even though it had no wings. Later in her adulthood, Travers identified it as the origin of her authorial identity; she believed the magic horse ran underground, and came up eventually as Mary Poppins. 'If you are looking for autobiographical facts,' Travers once wrote, 'Mary Poppins is the story of my life.'

And the final author, A.A. Milne, on the other hand, was an English author of Winnie the Pooh and House at the Pooh Corner. After a successful marriage with Dorothy Selincourt he had a son named Christopher Robin. Milne became very involved in nurturing him and was inspired by his son’s stuffed toys which became the main characters in his books. Milne had a child centered world, as he was the youngest and the favorite son, home comforts and affection was immense to him. Milne’s writing expresses his own happiness in life, he was successful, happily married and had a son whom he loved dearly. In Winnie the Pooh, Pooh, a bear with  very little brain in the Hundred Acre Wood, and his friend Piglet, a very small animal, after a long day return to Pooh’s house.

“What a long time whoever lives in here is not answering, and he knocked again. But Pooh, it’s your own house! said Piglet. Oh! So it is, said Pooh. Well, let’s go in.”

Now J in this scenario, Milne chooses to use Pooh’s stupidity as humor rather than a mockery of him. Other events such as Eeyore losing his tail and turns out Owl was using it as his door bell all reflect the innocent environment that Milne was in. He most likely got ideas from his son while he played with his toys and highly likely for Christopher Robin to make conversations with his toys that were not very intelligent yet humorous for adults.

Emotion is the invisible force of life. I’m sure you all have great minds…at least I think you do…We all think… we rationalize…and if we want to, we can make anything happen. But the ultimate power is descision making, what we decide after having that sensation. All of these authors were influenced by their family experiences despite being tragic or happy. Emotion was their resource and what they decided to do with that is what made their stories so appealing. There is an interaction/connection between their life and their work. Emotion let their stories feel alive and gave them a sense of belonging with the reality. Their emotion was their root. For instance, Last year, I participated in 30-300-30 essay writing challenge and was one of the few who completed. But to be honest, I was only doing it out of a strong will to succeed in the challenge.  With that in mind, I never realized what or how I was conveying my stories. Those stories had no emotion or connection and when I try and look back at it, I just can’t.

You can have great stories but make nothing out of it or write a splendid one out of a minor incident. Everyone has stories that the rest of us can learn from… Today, as you walk out of this class, I wanna challenge you to discover your story, or rediscover your wonder because …