RE: The Imagination of the Child
This blog post could also be entitled, “Why Samantha Shannon is right”. I was reading through the Guardian in search of some feature articles for my second year research and I came across a title which read “Why the headteacher who believes reading Harry Potter causes mental illness is wrong”. In this article written by Samantha Shannon she discusses a blog post written by The Acorn School’s headmaster, Graeme Whiting called “The Imagination of the Child". I wanted to to do the same.
So what Whiting’s post is trying to say here is that children’s minds should be protected from “negative experiences”. He suggests that this should be done until they’re 14 at least and then they can slowly “move towards conscious thought as adulthood looms”. It’s a very interesting subject, that of protecting the minds of children, yet I’m not in any sort of agreement with Whiting here. I think that whilst, yes, some of the darkest things should be kept from children in order not to encumber them in life, children need to learn how to talk about difficult issues that may arise. I’m not saying let a 8 year old read “Room” by Emma Donoghue, but there are certain elements that arise, particularly in fantastical fiction, where they can actually help a child’s development.
One of the series he mentions is Harry Potter. This book series, like to many others, is very near and dear to my heart. It helped me through a lot of tough times and gave me some much needed friends from time to time. So to hear Whiting talk about how children should leave these books until they have “first learned to love beauty” hurts me. A lot. I think that fantasy fiction is best enjoyed as a child. They are full of fun and fantasy which is incredible to read as a child. It was also what got me into reading! I also can’t see how, in any way, reading a Harry Potter novel could “damage the sensitive subconscious brains of young children.”
Sticking with Harry Potter as an example here, I think that Whiting has missed a key issue. Books can be used as therapy, especially when looking at the darker matter. There is a guide book written by Kathryn Markell called “The Children Who Lived”. In this it uses literary references in order to help grieving children and adolescents. Harry Potter is a key component of this book because it does deal throughout with Harry’s loss of his parents and what he has to live up to. It allows a child to then relieve their grief and talk about it more openly because they’re using literature as a stepping stone to recovery. Without something like this they may not be able to talk about it as well with counsellors and therefore be stuck in a cycle of thinking they should have done something or they could have stopped it, which could leave them more severely mentally ill.
Furthermore, Whiting states that he “stands for the old-fashioned values of traditional literature, classical poetry, Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley, Dickens, Shakespearean plays, and the great writes who will still be read in future years”. Samantha Shannon makes a very good point in her article about "Titus Andronicus", a Shakespearean play which by all means should mean, to Whiting, that it is perfectly acceptable for children to read. The daughter of Titus, Lavinia, is raped and then has her hands and tongue removed so that she can’t tell anyone. She is murdered by her own father out of shame for her being raped. I personally love that Shannon tries to find a Harry Potter equivalent which is near impossible, settling for Wormtail cutting off his hand, although she admits “it’s not quite in the same league”.
I just want to mention a couple of other Shakespeare plays, whilst I’m here. "Romeo and Juliet” has three people stabbed in duels, Romeo drinks poison, Juliet stabs herself and Romeo’s mother dies of a broken heart. In “Hamlet” almost everyone is stabbed or poisoned apart from the people who die off stage who are beheaded or drown themselves. And in "Macbeth" just pretty much everyone dies. I think what Whiting wants us to think about are the comedies of Shakespeare, but even in those there are elements wherein they can be tense which could be said to torment a child.
Additionally, lets talk about Dickens shall we. “Oliver Twist”, wherein a child is in a workhouse without family, is sold to the local undertaker who beats him before he runs away to London. He ends up in the company of pickpocketing homeless boys but on one of his pickpocketing jobs he is taken in by a rich man because of how much he looks like a young woman he has a portrait of. However he’s taken from this place by Bill Sikes and his lover Nancy and told he’ll go and burgle the place where he’d stayed. Oliver is shot but then taken in by the people who live there. If this currently isn’t enough of a tough time for a child reading it, I can’t imagine what they’d think when they read about Sike’s brutal murder of Nancy or that he inadvertently hangs himself on his escape mission.
Classical literature isn’t all light and beautiful as Whiting would have parents of his school children believe. I feel that whilst classics are interesting to read they aren’t the be all and end all of beauty. I do not have a favourite book that could be classed as a classic. Additionally, I feel that when children are forced into reading classical literature it almost instantly kills their love of reading. I have had to talk to so many young adults who have just finished their A - Levels or their first year of university and many have said they’re just getting back into reading because they’re not being forced to read anything. Whilst I understand that Whiting may believe that beauty may only lie within the pages of classical literature, I implore him to read more. I think more than anything within his post the idea of having read all he wanted to before he was 30 hurt me the most. I can’t imagine having read everything I wanted in the next 10 years. There is always more. There are new classics to be made. New beauty to discover within new book pages. There is so much more to the world of literature than middle aged white men.
Whilst I’m here too, Whiting talks about how children are “magnetised by the colourful and graphic attraction of the new book cover”. Yes. That’s because there are so many books that if you’re ever going to find something new it needs to stand out. I have picked up many a great book because of it’s eye catching cover. There’s nothing to say that this is wrong, sir. I’d also like to say he's wrong in suggesting that “authors don’t really care who reads what”. Ask any author of young adult fiction if they care about their audience. I’m almost certain that every single one would say yes. Because they’re writing to better the modern child. They’re writing to open children up to modern issues and creating a safe way for them to discuss issues which I think is incredible and something that Whiting is missing out on.
He concludes his blog post by saying “beware the devil in the text! Choose beauty for your young children!” I can’t remember the last time the devil was mentioned in a novel I read. I can’t remember the last time I picked up a fantasy, or contemporary novel and didn’t think “wow this is beautiful”. What Grahame Whiting is trying to do here is say that classical literature is better than contemporary literature or that which lies in the fantastical realms of the imagination. Allow your children to explore and examine the world around them through different eyes. Allow your child to pick a book they think they’ll enjoy and if they’re young read it with them and don’t allow them to be ignorant. Discuss issues with them. Allow them to be free to read and enjoy reading. For after all, understanding yourself and the world around you is the most beautiful thing of all, isn’t it?
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