The Secret Grove Pt. 1

As storytellers gain experience in the kinds of things their listeners/readers/viewers like, genres emerge. For instance, there was a time when people wanted to hear about a dude falling asleep, meeting a guide and gaining mystical insight to such abstract concepts as the nature of God, fame, the afterlife and the universe in general. This genre is called “Dream Vision,” and people were absolutely mad for it. I’m not sure how well it would fly now, but some of the most popular and best literature written in the English language is Dream Vision. Nowadays in film we like to watch outlandish problems solved by equally outlandish heroes, primarily by punching and exploding things (Marvel and DC pantheons, Hellboy). In TV, we love to watch crimes, usually murders, being solved. Bonus points if it’s done using forensic evidence (Castle, Criminal Minds, Bones, CSI <insert large metropolitan area here>). In books, this week we like paranormal/crime, paranormal/romance, and more murder solving.

It’s important to know that genres develop based on the needs of the consumer. Thrillers are written, sold and read because people are bored. Romances sell because people feel unloved. Pulitzer Prize winners sell because… actually, that is a complicated bag of worms. I’ll complain about that later. The point is, genres tell us something about the people that read them. This is as true for children’s literature as it is for adults. However, children have vastly different needs than their adult counterparts, resulting in vastly different and oddly specific genres. There is the ever popular “Boy and His Dog” genre (Old Yeller, Where the Red Fern Grows, Because of Winn-Dixie), the children’s version of Historical Fiction that places children in the thick of major events (Johnny Tremain, Rush Revere), and the “Secret Grove*,” in which children leave this familiar, ordinary world and have many adventures in a new, fantastic one. This last genre is of particular interest to me since this is where my book falls.

I have seen the subgenre of Secret Grove formally recognized only once, which either means that I haven’t been hanging out with the right people or we have a problem in not taking children’s literature seriously. Probably both are true. Regardless, this is a very real literary phenomenon that deserves attention. Perhaps it was J.M. Barrie who did it first with “Peter Pan.” C.S. Lewis did it in his highly allegorical “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,” which developed into the “Chronicles of Narnia” series. Madeline L’Engle followed suit with “A Wrinkle in Time” which also blossomed into a series of books. Norton Juster’s “The Phantom Tollbooth,” Julie Edwards’ “The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles,” Astrid Lindgren’s “Mio, My Son,” and let’s not forget the lesser known iterations that tried to recapture Lewis’s magic such as “The Archives of Anthropos” series by John White and “The Imager Chronicles” by Bill Myers; all of these excellent examples of the Secret Grove. God forbid we forget that one by that one lady about the kid with the glasses. What was its name again? Then there are the ones that don’t technically take place in another world, but bring that other world into ours such as “The Spiderwick Chronicles” by Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black, and “Jumanji” by Chris Van Allsburg. Finally, “kids save a fantasy world” as a genre is central to the 2005 film “Neverwas,” meaning it is accepted as an instantly recognizable feature of children’s literature.

Genres often share more than one theme in common, and such is the case with Secret Grove narratives. Key features are of course child protagonists, often orphaned or the child of a single parent (COSP), and entrance to a fantastic world through a portal. The journey is often made with at least one sibling or close friend.  Like Dream Visions, there is usually a guide or guides to help the children navigate their new environment. The protagonist(s) learn that the world is under imminent threat from unspeakable evil (explicit menace appropriately scaled to the age of the target audience), but it is hoped that their arrival portends the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy. The children must then traverse hostile terrain and engage with various monsters employing tactics with vaguely allegorical connotations including brute force, deception, and temptation, until the final showdown with the evil threat. What happens after the inevitable victory depends on variations in the plot. If it turns out the protagonist is orphaned/COSP because they are actually natives of the fantasy world and were hidden away on our normal, boring world to protect them from the ultimate evil, the protagonist is allowed to stay and be a celebrated hero and/or continue to have adventures, at which point the narrative has the chance to morph into a straight Fantasy should it expand into a series. If, however, the protagonist has a loving family at home who will worry about their absence, they will be returned to our world to discover that time works differently in the opposing universes, and that the whole of their adventures has taken anywhere from the span of an afternoon to a matter of seconds in our time.

This is just preliminary information. In the following week I’ll reveal my hypothesis on the rationale behind Secret Grove conventions, some of their unintended consequences, and perhaps how I plan to maintain or subvert these tropes. In the meantime, I would love to know your thoughts on this topic. What is/was YOUR favorite Secret Grove novel and why? Did I get some conventions wrong, or are there some I have missed? Is “The Archives of Anthropos” too blatant a derivative of Narnia to be worth the read, or does it sufficiently advance the genre?

*I believe the term “Secret Grove” is a reference to C.S. Lewis’ “The Magician’s Nephew,” in which the protagonists magically travel to a park-like area with many trees and pools scattered throughout. The pools are gateways through which the children travel to the worlds Charn, Narnia, and Earth, and it is suggested that each pool hides a world of its own.