Last week I established the legitimacy of Secret Grove as a
subgenre of children’s Fantasy literature and indicated the conventions of the
genre. My sister pointed out Lewis Caroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”
as both a Dream Vision and a Secret Grove. I only wanted to establish that genre
is not by any means new, and selected Dream Vision at random. However, “Alice,”one
of the earliest if not the first, Secret Grove is also a Dream Vision. This is
cool, but not what I wanted to talk about today. Today I want to go over the
conventions within Secret Grove, explain the rationale, and explore some of the
unintended consequences.
Child Protagonist:
This is a function of children’s lit, not Secret Grove specifically. We like to
spend time with people that make us feel comfortable and good about ourselves, and
it is just as true with books as in real life. With books, however, the reader
has the choice to quit hanging out with the characters anytime they choose,
free of guilt or social pressure (unless it is required reading). Kids like to
be with other kids, and kids in books are the best because they want to be the
readers’ friend without exception or prejudice. This means that when reading,
kids can and do hang out with the older, slightly cooler social caste. Therefore, the
prevailing wisdom follows; choose your target age range and make the
protagonist one or two years older. This is solid, time tested advice, but I am
also of the firm belief that, if they are interesting and written well enough, a
protagonist of any age will work for any audience.
Orphaned or Child of
a Single Parent: The easy answer to this convention is that absent parents
immediately evokes sympathy. This isn’t just true for Secret Grove, it’s also
prevalent in graphic novels and any other narrative where the writer wants to
quickly establish character angst and moral high ground, so they can move on to
the important, interesting part of the story. In many cases it’s lazy writing,
but with Secret Grove it offers the added benefit of opening up new possibilities
for the protagonist. Percy Jackson’s dad was never in the picture, not because
he was a lazy deadbeat, but because he is a bonafide Greek god. Harry’s an
orphan because his parents were killed fighting the ultimate evil, which means
his adventures are not just about saving the world… it’s personal. A notable
exception is the majority of C.S. Lewis’s Narnia universe. The protagonists do have a
variety of parental/authority problems before crossing their portals, some that
come into play later in the narrative. However, the only true use of the
“abandoned at birth” trope appears in “The Horse and His Boy,” a narrative fully
contained inside the Narnia universe without breaching our own, thus qualifying as a straight Fantasy,
not a Secret Grove.
By circumventing this obvious childhood problem, Lewis shows
a sensitivity all too rare in children’s literature. Kids can have absent
parents, abusive parents, or irresponsible parents. Sometimes there are
problems that are not the parent’s fault at all, but they are still unable to
care for their kids the way they should. Sometimes kids have difficulties
unrelated to their caregivers. They worry, lack confidence, misplace their priorities,
get angry; the obstacles are typically different for children, but they often
have the same root problems.
I am not saying that being thrown into foster care or having
only one parent is no big deal. These are huge, true causes for angst in real
life, and I am glad that they are addressed in children’s literature. It
reassures kids who are in these situations that their concerns are legitimate,
and helps kids who are not in these situations to empathize with peers who are
dealing with these problems. However, foster kids and COSPs are overrepresented
in children’s literature, which delegitimizes other problems. It feeds the
misconception that, if you have both of your original parents, you don’t have
any real problems or any excuses for feeling alienated and misunderstood. Being
misunderstood, though, is a hallmark of childhood regardless of familial
status. Kids typically lack the vocabulary and life experience to communicate
exactly what it is they are feeling or want. They also are restricted by their
own desire to be accepted by their authority figures, afraid that if they
confess to having negative emotions, dissatisfaction or doubts, parents will
perceive them as flawed or take their expression as a critique on their leadership. Then when you consider that many
adult problems and anxieties stem from beliefs subconsciously gained at a young
age, it seems almost irresponsible to imply that the only thing that could go
wrong in a kids’ life is their parent’s death.
Fantastic World:
This world belongs to adults. Kids have limited earning potential, spending
power, and social as well as physical mobility. Counters, doors, chairs, steps,
shelves, eating utensils, computer keyboards; the entire world is scaled for
adults. We create adult problems, often times through abuse of adult beverages
and/or seeking adult activities, and we look for adult solutions. When the
occasional kid crops up in adult oriented narratives, they are typically a
nuisance, a McGuffin, or comic relief. Kids have no agency in our world, and it
is as difficult for them to believe that they could help us fix our problems as
it is for us. A Fantastic world, however, operates under a different set of
rules. Perhaps in another world a child might have something to offer that an
adult can not.
When we engage with narrative we are voluntarily spending
time with other people in different places than where we are right now. Seeking
out fantastic settings indicates dissatisfaction with the world in which we
currently exist. If you more or less like the world you live in you will enjoy
fantasizing about one strikingly similar to this, with more beautiful people
and less traffic, of course. However, some people find themselves profoundly
dissatisfied with real life, and enjoy spending time in universes that don’t
remind them at all of their birth world. This, I propose, is why there appears
to be a correlation with social undesirables (nerds) and Fantasy, Science
Fiction, Manga/Anime, etc. These are worlds where incredible, unlikely things
happen, where a simple farm boy can be the savior of the universe and a teenaged
girl with a bow can be the catalyst for revolution. Children are more willing
than most adults to abandon the realities of our world for magic, fantastic
realms where they might have more agency.
Additionally, children are used to Fantasy. They are raised
on Seuss, Boynton and Carle from birth, and smoothly transition to E.B. White
and Beverly Cleary. Somewhere between “Pete the Cat” and “The Lord of the
Flies” anthropomorphic animals and machines fade out and literature becomes
boring, but until then kids are quite forgiving with their disbelief
suspension.
Through a Portal:
If kids are so good at jumping in and out of fantasy worlds, why not start in a
fantasy world from the outset? The first reason is character identity. We like
to have things in common with our protagonists, and it is difficult to identify
with a kid who has had a completely different life experience than us.
The second reason is that it helps with mental organization. As we read and watch more narratives we acquire vicarious
experiences, which help us dive into unfamiliar settings faster. At a young
age, however, beginning in a familiar setting helps orient the reader with
recognizable points of reference.
The third reason is the appeal of dreaming that this can
happen to you. As a kid, I searched for pixies so I could shake them down for
dust, and had a happy thought ready at all times. I picked through attics and stared at pictures, and you can bet your swashbuckling pirate
boots I climbed into every wardrobe I could find at least twice. I knew
Neverland and Narnia weren’t real. I knew the only way I could go there was in
a book, which really bummed me out because those adventures were on rails. I
already knew them, knew what was going to happen, and Lewis was dead before I
was born so there weren’t going to be any more. Still, that didn’t stop me from
checking because you never know.
I know the solution now. Write your own story. That is how I
got into writing fiction; acting out Middle Earth/Princess Bride/Neverland
mashups in the backyard, the very worst fan fiction in the universe. After a
lot more reading, classes and practice, I finally know enough about what is
compelling about these narratives and how they should be executed to try one of
my own.
Next week I will continue to ramble about Secret Grove
conventions. I don’t know if you’ll enjoy yourself, but I will.
